The Slow Burn
by Knackard
Summary: The life and times of Renesmee Carlie Cullen, mutant half-breed antichrist. Nessie discovers love, vintage clothing, sex and the joys of vampire-hunting, all while lusting after her obnoxiously oblivious imprint/best friend Jacob. Will she ever be with Jacob the way she is in her dreams? Spans the quarter-century post-BD, reasonably canon-compliant.
1. The First Separation

**Thanks to my good man for beta'ing this. This story is my attempt to address some of the inherent difficulties of an adult-child imprint, especially given an unlimited time frame. Specifically, I am intrigued by the idea of a romance that takes decades to percolate, and the pain of outliving one's mortal lovers and friends. I originally wanted this story to span at least a century, but I'm not Neal Stephenson: I am just not clever enough to know what the future will look like.  
**

**I do not own these characters. Leave as many reviews as you want, including constructively critical ones, as I welcome discussion. Hope you like!  
**

* * *

It was puberty that did it. For almost three years I spent every waking moment with Jacob, and when I looked at him I saw only a walking jungle gym with a big smile, hair to yank, and hands to make cat's cradles on. I saw a reading partner and a mentor and a tutor and an opponent in tree-shaking races that ended with both of us clutching our sides in laughter and scraping embedded twigs out of our feet. Jacob taught me to swim, to build a fire, to check the oil in a car. I adored and idolized him. He thought everything I said was funnier and smarter than any other child had ever been in the history of the world. I thought he could do anything.

Unfortunately, I was burdened with half-vampire, half-human mutant supergrowth. It came with the territory of being an antichrist. By the time I was one, I looked seven. By the time I was two, I could easily pass for eleven, although my growth seemed by then to have slowed almost to normal. When I was two and a half, I started having hair in weird places and my bony chest developed what appeared to be mosquito bites where my breasts would eventually grow. Rosalie took me to CVS to buy me boxes of pantyliners to catch all the smelly drippings that now made a mess of my underwear, and, three months before I turned three, I had my first wet dream.

The dream was about Jacob, and my mind-reading father happened to be listening in on my thoughts that night.

I was swimming through thick golden daylight toward Jacob. He was waist-deep in water, though why his living room would be flooded I didn't know. I could see a narrow trail of hair tip-toeing downward from his belly button. I could tell that he didn't have any clothes on above or below the water, even though the refraction of the light made it impossible for me to see anything I hadn't seen before. I kept asking him to come out so we could have a race, but he only laughed and then fell very slowly into a back float. I was noticing that my legs felt curiously light and free when Edward's wordless roar woke me up.

* * *

I had never seen Edward like this, nor had anyone else. He looked truly insane as he yanked me out of bed and flung me at my mother, who had appeared in the doorway. I was still half-asleep and groggy; in all the confusion, my dream was temporarily banished from memory. I didn't know why he was acting like this, and no one explained. He disappeared from sight. Bella strained her ears and suddenly tensed.

"He's headed for the boundary line," she said nervously. I heard a feather-soft shuffle, caught a vanishing glimpse of Emmett and Rosalie taking off after my father, and then heard nothing of them for three hours.

My mother settled herself elegantly on the silk bedspread beside me and took my hand. "What happened, sweetie?" my mother asked me gravely.

"I don't know. Dad woke me up...I was having a dream." The contents of the dream came back to me and I cringed, but it was too late to withdraw from my mother's touch. Bella's eyes widened as she saw what I saw.

"Oh, Renesmee, your father saw that?" I nodded miserably.

"Why's he so mad? I didn't do anything wrong, did I?"

"No, baby, you didn't. Honey, is that the first dream you've had with Jacob in it?" I shook my head mutely. I dreamed about him all the time. She knew that. Why was she asking?

"He isn't usually naked, though," I said, trying to be helpful. "What's wrong with Dad? I go swimming with Jacob all the time." But I knew it wasn't the swimming that had upset my father. I was only two and no one had even thought to give me The Talk. But my mind and body were much older, twelve, maybe thirteen. Jacob had even started giving me secret driving lessons. And I had felt an exquisite nervousness around him for months now.

* * *

When Edward came back, he joined me and Bella in my room.

"We're leaving at the end of the week," he said tersely.

"Is Jake coming?" I asked.

"No. Jacob needs to stay here with the pack, Renesmee." Edward looked terribly strained, the way he looked when he got thirsty, though he'd fed just a few days ago.

"But he'll visit? Like we planned?" My voice rose in panic.

"We'll be too far away to visit."

"How far?"

"Newfoundland."

"No!" I squeaked. "No! Jacob has to come too, you have to let Jake come too!" When Edward just stood there like a statue, I lost my head. I launched myself at him and started clawing at his face, scratching his eyes. My fingernails slid over them like they were glass marbles. He didn't even have the decency to blink.

"Renesmee!" Bella tried to pry me off of him, but it took both of their efforts to wrestle me back to the bed and hold me there. Unable to move, pinned under their hands, I resorted to screaming at them. Edward clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle my shrieks, and I bit him. Eventually they just called Jasper in to calm me down. It was dawn before I drifted off to sleep.

* * *

We had known for some time we would have to move. The Cullens had been in Forks for too long; their lack of aging was beginning to grow conspicuous. But the plan had been to move to a town an hour away soon after my third birthday. My growth had slowed enough by now that we thought I could have a normal highschool career if I started in the next year or two. We would be close enough for Jacob to wolf up and visit every day without abandoning the pack. The Cullens would do another round of highschool, and we could all go to college when we graduated.

Jacob had spent the last few years making up his high school diploma. He confided in me that he wanted to go to college once he'd saved up enough money from flipping cars. He didn't precisely need a college education-or at least, not in the way most people do. He would likely never have a normal job, and college couldn't teach him anything about being an immortal vampire-hunting beast of the night. Still, he said, it was important to be well-rounded.

And now, for who knew how long, he would be well-rounded without me.

* * *

For the rest of the week, I wasn't allowed to be alone. One of my parents was always with me, and Jasper hovered nearby in case I needed to be sedated again. On the morning of our departure, my father told me stonily that I could say goodbye to Jacob. He came with me, one hand gripped like a vice around my upper arm as we ran through the woods.

"Jake will never accept this," I said hopefully as we crossed a stream. "He'll come after me."

"No he won't," said my father simply.

"Jake loves me!" I shouted. "Unlike you!"

"You're being childish."

"Because I'm a child, maybe?"

He didn't say another word until we reached the boundary. I was allowed to cross at will, but the Cullens were still constrained by the treaty. Jacob stood at the boundary line, worry crinkling up his forehead.

"Nessie, are you okay?" He asked me as soon as we were in earshot.

"They're taking me away!" Jacob pulled me into a bone-crunching hug. My toes dangled several feet above the ground and I began to sob openly into his shirt. We stood there for a long time before my father prissily cleared his throat.

* * *

We arrived at St. Johns in early summer and stayed in a posh hotel until Esme could pick out a house. Edward, Bella and I shared a suite with two bedrooms, a large common area and two gigantic, marble-paved bathrooms. I took four-hour-long baths, sometimes adding hot water as the bath cooled off, sometimes not. I was piecing together what had happened, partly from talking to Rosalie and Emmett, partly from eavesdropping.

When Edward had seen Jacob in my dream, his first instinct was to go murder the little pedophile. Fortunately for them both, Rosalie and Emmett caught up with Edward before he could catch up with Jacob. When the three of them did finally run across Jacob, he listened to Edward's ranting. When he realized what he was being accused of, he came very close to dismembering my father.

"She's only a kid, for shit's sake. What kind of monster would touch a kid?"

Then Edward read Jacob's mind for a solid two hours. Five minutes would have been sufficient; Edward had been reading minds so long that he was preternaturally skilled at sussing out lies. Eventually he was satisfied that Jacob had never done or thought anything objectionable, and he and Rosalie and Emmett returned to the house, leaving a bewildered and angry Jacob standing in the woods. They never told him about my dream.

The worst part was that Edward was right: Jacob didn't come after me. He just let me go. No one in the world knew Jacob as well as I did, and even I couldn't understand. If our positions had been reversed, I wouldn't have slept until I found him.

Eventually, in the face of another of my tantrums, Alice broke down and explained.

"Edward gave Jacob some very compelling reasons not to track us down."

"He didn't tell him about the-" I began, horrified.

"No, lord no, all the soldiers in Volterra couldn't drag that out of him. He sort of...gave Jacob a carrot and a stick."

"Huh?"

"He told Jacob that I saw a tiny glimpse of something terrible happening to you, but that I couldn't see it properly because you're so tied up in him. Which is true-well, not that I saw something terrible, but it is true that until we left Forks I haven't gotten more than a few fleeting glimpses of your future. That was the carrot. Let you go and save your life."

That was so many brands of awful I couldn't even focus on it right now. "What's the stick?"

"Well, he...you're not going to like this, Nessie."

"What part of this have I liked so far? Just tell me, Alice. Please?"

"Edward told Jacob that if he came after you, or tried to contact you in any way, it would just mess up my visions, and we couldn't have that, so..."

"What, Alice? What?"

Alice said in rush, "He said if Jacob came after you he would hunt down and kill all the werewolf imprints, and their families. And he would tell every nomad he met for the rest of eternity to come help themselves, until the Quileute tribe was obliterated." Her voice was heavy with shame. All the air went out of me in a whoosh and I sat down, hard.

I could see exactly how it must have happened. Jacob wouldn't have cared, at least not at first. The imprint was irrational. He would have gone back to the pack and begun to make plans. But every member of his pack, and the Alpha of the other pack, would hear this conversation ringing in his head.

Four other werewolves had imprints; they would feel as strongly about danger to their imprints as Jacob felt about me, and even those without imprints had loved ones they stood to lose. They would fight Jacob, if they needed to, but it wouldn't even come to that. He would feel their own fear and rage and know, even if the imprint didn't want to let him, that he had no choice. He couldn't do to them what Edward was doing to him. No one who knew my father could doubt he meant what he said-except Bella, and she was an idiot. For Jacob to consider throwing his entire tribe under the bus just so he could be with me would tear the Pack apart. He could never be so despicable.

He was the Alpha, and he would act like it.

* * *

Esme found a gorgeous old mansion perched on the edge of a cliff that overlooked the bay. It had been a summer "cottage" for some millionaire when it was built in the 1890's, then turned into a hotel in the 50's and eventually abandoned to rot. Carlisle bought it and he and Esme and whoever was around worked night and day, first to make sure it wasn't in any danger of sliding into the bay, and then to make it look like a summer retreat for a billionaire. Working on the house, Esme seemed to blossom like a flower in the sun. She whistled delicate snatches of birdsong that she picked up from the local bird population. I wasn't any hand at fine craft, but I liked to sit with my grandmother while she hand-carved railings and scalloped shingles where the siding had blown off the house.

A sizeable porch ran around three sides, and the second and third floors were almost nothing but white mullioned windows, with a little bit of wall to hold them up. I had a room on the third floor, with a balcony that faced the sea. All of the rooms were perfect, but mine had the best view of the rising sun. I didn't want a room that faced west.

We enrolled at St. Augustine's High School. Emmett would be a senior, while Bella, Rosalie and Jasper were juniors. Edward and Alice were sophomores and I started out at the bottom. Having me around galvanized Alice and Rosalie: they seemed determined to take full advantage of this new high school. Although classes didn't start till mid-August, most of the extracurriculars had auditions and camps in July. Alice cheerfully signed up for the school's color guard. Jasper, not to be left out, joined marching band, to widespread Cullen amusement.

"Just like the drum corps," he said in an exaggerated drawl.

"Don't forget your fife!" Emmett sang out when Jasper left for his first practice.

Rosalie signed up for cheer camp and theater, and Emmett made it onto the football team with no effort at all, other than the effort required to hold himself back from his full strength. Edward and Bella were the only ones who didn't bother with the charade, which wasn't surprising. When it came to human teenagers, my father had a superiority complex that would have shamed Nero, and my mother had been in such a hurry to discard her own humanity that it never even occurred to her to try to enjoy it now.

I did soccer. Like Emmett, holding myself back to human-speed was tricky, but at least it was something to take my mind off of Jacob. The trouble was, it didn't work. I thought of him constantly. I needed something more vigorous. Something that would let me stretch out more, and maybe even tire me out so I wouldn't have to cry myself to sleep anymore.

Something like rugby.

In early July school sent out an email announcing that St. Augustine's rugby club would commence soon, and that anyone interested should come to an information meeting and tryout a month before school started up again. There were no girls in the club, but it wasn't explicitly forbidden. What girl would have gone out for rugby?

Of course I had to do it. When I showed up for tryouts half the guys started laughing and half looked apprehensive, like I was going to ruin their fun by being delicate. They had a point: I was ninety pounds soaking wet, with bones jutting out in the way of children preparing for a definitive growth spurt. The captain gave everyone a speech about how rugby was an intensely violent sport, and no one was going to go easy on anyone, and if you didn't like it you could just leave. This guy had obviously envisioned some sort of Boys' Town, with him as mayor. He explained the game and put us through our paces. By the time the sun was going down, I had made thirteen tackles and nearly broken one guy's arm by accident. My face was covered in mud and someone's blood, I didn't know whose. At least half a dozen guys had trickled off the field in search of first aid. The captain decreed that everyone who had stayed this long could come back next week for a pick up.

A few of the guys started jokingly to refer to me as Crusher instead of Carlie, the name I'd adopted in St. John's. It was a nickname that I certainly lived up to. I was missing Jake so viciously that rugby became an outlet. I didn't get into fights as a general rule, but tackling seniors that weighed twice as much as me was a satisfying way to vent my anger at Edward.

After that first day none of the guys bothered taking it easy on me. Sometimes we'd all go get food together after a game, and I would be one of them. But even after a practice, when the others were barely dragging their feet to the showers, I was still bouncing off the walls. I took to swimming mile-long laps in the ocean before bed just so I could get to sleep.

* * *

Over the summer I became friendly with a girl who lived about a mile down the road, the sister of one of the boys in the rugby club. Jean was a trifle introverted, but she warmed up quickly enough when faced with my unquellable bone-deep cheerfulness. And of course Alice charmed her easily.

Jean and I spent all the warm weather cliff-diving and swimming at the public beach near her house. We could have swum on my family's private waterfront property, but I liked people-watching. Jean was a good swimmer, and she laughed as easily as she breathed once the shyness had been overcome. Once I met her I began to think I might not be miserable in St. John's. We had sleepovers at each other's houses. I worried about bringing her to the Cullen establishment, but the Cullens had gotten enough practice in the years when Bella was still human that nobody thought anything of it but me. She adored Esme's cooking and my gigantic book collection. I suspected she had a crush on Jasper, but the only ones who would have known that were Edward and Jasper himself, and they both tended to make themselves scarce when we had girl nights. And if Alice knew anything about it, it didn't change the way she behaved toward Jean. Even Rosalie made an effort not to be snide.

My father didn't, of course. He couldn't have stopped acting superior if his life depended on it. And Bella was terminally bad at interacting with humans; she hadn't really built those skills in life, and now that she spent twenty-seven hours a day with Edward, she had less than a kitten's chance on a racetrack of developing a sense of empathy.

But Jean didn't notice or mind, and I relished her friendship. When she came over Esme would cook us up a feast, complete with elaborate cupcakes and popcorn, and Jean and I would settle on the enormous suede couch in the den to watch movies. Alice, being only a pretend year older than us, often joined the festivities. If it was an especially good movie, so would Rosalie and Esme. Bella never did, though. Having fun wasn't really her thing.


	2. Details of a New Life

Carlisle told me what a good influence I had on his children. "Edward was not happy for a long while, and now that's all changed the difference is striking. I didn't realize it at the time, but before he found Bella he was deeply depressed, and I see now that his depression spread to the rest of us."

I was helping Carlisle paint his office. He could have done it in no time himself, but Carlisle liked to do things "the human way" at work just to stay in character. Whoever inherited this office once we left would find it in better shape than when it was built: the floor had been hand-sanded and refinished, every wall was meticulously squared-off and edged in paint, and Esme had been in here to install hand-carved crown molding. Now we were busy sanding every bump smooth so we could do a final coat. Even with all these extra steps I didn't get bored. I liked talking to Carlisle. He could give the most fascinating first-hand accounts of things I read about in my history books at school. And of course he'd known my father the longest of anyone else in my family.

"His long years without intimate companionship and his ability to read minds, bred in him a contagious contempt for humanity. It's fairly usual for vampires to despise humans; they see them as cattle, beneath us in every way. Most vampires don't remember what it's like to be human, or perhaps they don't take the trouble to notice what sublimely adaptive and inventive creatures humans are. It's possible for our family to insert ourselves into human society, to an extent, because we have an unusually high degree of liking for them. Alice is curious about them, Emmett finds them amusing. Esme has kept more of her humanity than any other vampire I've met. Even Rosalie admires and envies them, and as you know Jasper is compelled by his gift to empathize with humans. Not all vegetarian vampires feel so strongly about it. The Denalis are highly insular; I doubt they've introduced themselves to their human neighbors, even though they've lived in the same settlement for decades."

"I wish Dad'd just go live with the Denalis, then," I huffed as I scraped a hair-thin bump from the wall with my fingernail.

"Well, he considered it for a time," Carlisle admitted. "Perhaps it would have been better for us all if he had-but then, he wouldn't have met Bella. But I will admit that we were merely going through the motions for several decades. It grows difficult to feel enthusiasm for the human experience when an important member of the family is constantly pointing out how petty and stupid and mean humans are, and how bored he is by every facet of his existence. I know Edward can read minds, but I believe you learn more about a person by what he or she does than by what he or she thinks. After all, thoughts are meant to be private. A person can be struggling with thoughts of envy or spite or cruelty, without ever allowing them to bubble to the surface. All Edward sees is the meanness, but I believe it is that redeeming struggle that is more important." Carlisle sighed heavily.

"Still," he went on, "Things have improved greatly. You know, Edward's attitude was much more like your own when he was alive, and for a time after his death. Believe it or not, you get your cheerfulness from him."

"I definitely don't get it from Mom," I said with a roll of the eyes.

"Well, with Bella to balance him out a bit, and with you around to keep us on our toes, things are much more like they used to be, back when we all took a more active interest in human society. It does help the time pass more enjoyably..." Carlisle paused, and then blew a particle of dust away from the wall.

"Or at all," I finished.

* * *

Alice could pull off fifteen if she styled her hair and clothes and makeup right. And of course, she welcomed any excuse to play around with makeup.

"It makes me feel like I'm in a four year long movie!" she told me while applying the faintest hints of eyebrow pencil to make her brows look more unkempt. "Rosalie doesn't get into this stuff as much, because Rosalie is a panty."

"You're a panty!" Rosalie shouted from a room across the house.

"But I like doing all the effects," she went on with only the hint of a sly smile to indicate she'd heard. "I think I'll discover tweezers in my junior year. Heavy face powder makes it look like I'm self-conscious about skin problems, and I look about twelve if I do my hair in a headband. Oh, and I think for junior year I'll be really into baggy sweatshirts, because I'm trying to hide the fact that I don't feel comfortable in my growing body. Maybe next year I'll discover makeup and go way overboard for about a month, then settle into something more normal. And of course I'll wear shoes in graduated heights so I can at least pretend I'm getting taller."

"You still look like a vampire," I said.

"Yes," agreed Alice, "But could I at least pull off fifteen-year-old vampire? I'm pretty sure I was malnourished in my childhood." She looked a little forlorn as she struggled to remember, but since she hadn't remembered before now she probably never would. "It's so frustrating!" she burst out. "I can see the future, but I can't even remember what my mother looked like, or what I did for fun when I was a teenager, or anything."

"Maybe there's a vampire somewhere with the power to see the past," Rosalie commented from the doorway. "Or maybe you should just do what you always do, and have a new adolescence every time we move to a new town." Rosalie moved in a blur to stand behind Alice and started playing with Alice's hair, arranging it till it fell in a convincingly juvenile disarray. "There. And you should put on some nail polish and then scrape half of it off, so it looks like you bite your nails."

Rosalie even let us work on her a bit.

"I don't know why you guys are bothering," she complained. "I'm the vainest person in existence. This is going to be torture. And we never did all this before."

"You're not vain, stop listening to Edward. And we didn't have Renesmee before," Alice pointed out as she carefully tangled Rosalie's perfect golden hair. "It's more important now that we fit in. And we have to be nice to the humans. Eternity can be fun if we just make an effort!"

"Ugh," groaned Rosalie. "Don't remind me. Stupid eternity."

* * *

Every week I picked out a nondescript postcard and scrawled a message to Jake. He never wrote me back because I wasn't allowed to include an address, or even a hint of where we were living.

Jake,

I made the soccer team and the rugby team, but these pathetic humans aren't remotely as fun to tackle as you. I might do swimming in the spring.  
Love  
Nessie

And,

Jake,

School is getting busy. I already know most of the material, which is good because I am never listening, just thinking about you.  
Love,  
Nessie

* * *

Three days before my third birthday, Alice and Jasper disappeared and came back in time for my birthday breakfast. They brought Charlie with them. I was ecstatic to see him, and he expressed his customary disbelief at how much I'd grown in the last few months. Already most of the childhood fat was dropping away from my face. I was easily 5'4" and I had the knobby knees and jutting elbows of a preteen, without a trace of toddler to be found. Charlie was willing to accept my oddness, though, because he accepted me.

Charlie was delighted with me as a granddaughter. The plan had originally been to let him think I was some sort of adopted ward, but after Jacob had phased in front of Charlie there didn't seem to be any need to keep the truth from him. We loved to go fishing and watch sports together, and I think he was impressed with my sturdiness. How sturdy, he had no idea; he was merely relieved that I hadn't inherited my mother's emotional and physical fragility. And it must have been nice for Charlie to finally have a family member who shared his interests. He couldn't get Bella to watch a basketball game with him for love or money, but I would happily settle on the couch beside him and watch all day.

Notwithstanding that each of my family members gave me multiple gifts (I was _so _spoiled), several stood out. Alice gave me a vintage Dior fur-lined swing coat. It was amazingly beautiful and in mint condition. It must have cost her at least four grand, not that money meant anything to Alice.

"I noticed you've been favoring the mid-century look and I thought you could use something to fight the St. John's winters." Maybe money meant nothing to her, but knowing Alice she had searched for months, run through countless scenarios in her head, just to find me the best possible coat. Alice did nothing by halves. And I would gladly admit that it was fabulously _me_. The fur lining was auburn, the same shade as Jake's wolf fur. It hurt my throat just to look at it, but I knew I would be living in that coat come winter. Hell, I'd probably wrap up in it to sleep in tonight.

Esme gave me a beautiful necklace she'd made of beach-glass from Forks. I almost cried when I saw it; she'd lovingly collected the wave-tossed shards for weeks before we left, polished them on one side, and etched tiny scenes of Forks into the undersides so they stood out in relief. Esme had always been good with her hands, but this time she'd really outdone herself. The center pendant was a piece of bottle glass in just the shade of green that Esme had always sworn was my color, with our old house etched perfectly into it, one inch tall.

But the real gift, the one that trumped them all, was waiting under my pillow when I went to bed. It was a somewhat clumsily-wrapped object, the size of my fist. A note in Alice's handwriting read, _I went back to get this. He says to tell you he loves you_. Inside the package was a tiny greyhound, hand-carved out of a piece of sun-bleached driftwood. Jacob had always said that if I were a shape-shifter, I'd be a greyhound, fast and loyal and affectionate. Part of the pack. The carving felt warm and I fancied I could feel the heat of his hands lingering there. I clutched it to my chest and fell back on my bed. I was too paralyzed with longing even to cry.

I couldn't do this. Stay here, in St. John's, surrounded by my loving and impossible family. I couldn't get attached. Already I felt a love for the place reaching out and wrapping itself, tentacle-like, around my heart. I couldn't do this and I wouldn't.

So I packed a suitcase with the necessaries and all the cash I had, and climbed out of my window. I sprinted about a mile before Edward stepped silently in front of me.

"Come on, Renesmee. Let's go home. Alice saw you leaving but I hoped you wouldn't go through with it. I don't want to have to babysit you."

There was nothing to do but go back.

* * *

St. John's was overcast much of the time, but that made the sunrises out my bedroom window much more interesting. And I had to admit I was infatuated with Canada; the people were so nice and un-American. Carlisle liked it too: he said that being a doctor in Canada blew the pants off of being a doctor in the United States. Edward and Bella didn't show any particular appreciation for Newfoundland, but they did tend to disappear for week-long road trips, so obviously Canada did _something _for them.

But the biggest improvement was in Rosalie. The distraction of school was good for her, and she certainly was embracing human culture in way the others hadn't seen since the Forties. She didn't want to go through an awkward teenage stage like Alice, but there were plenty of other pastimes to be had. She tried out for St. Augustine's winter production of _Chicago _and, unsurprisingly, nabbed the role of Velma Kelly. Rosalie had a beautiful singing voice and a real flair for drama. With her tall, curvy frame and hundred-year-old gaze, she more than looked the part; but it was her moxie that really brought the role to life. Rosalie spent hours running her lines and songs with me and Alice, changing this inflection or that expression, until she was satisfied with her performance. The pleasure of performing consumed her completely and her usual reserve gave way to endless talks about wigs and costumes, dance numbers and the drama of Drama. William Huxley, the poor sap who played Amos, even developed a crush on her and would do anything to get her alone.

"I've managed never to taste human blood on purpose or by accident, and I'm sure as hell not starting with Bill Huxley," she told me. "His mouth smells like Doritos."

* * *

Jean and I signed up for as many advanced classes as we could-Jean so she could get ahead in school, I because I already _was _ahead: with my vampire-derived photographic memory, any lessons I learned stayed learned. We were among the "smart students," also known as the "geeks," although my athletic records helped to blur the lines of my social status. We took honors English and honors Canadian History and fast-track Algebra. English was by far our favorite class, taught by a saucy feminist thirty-something named Mrs. Beier. In our first semester, we studied _Romeo and Juliet_, and I earned Mrs. Beier's undying favor with my essay on how childish the two main characters were, and how unconvincing I found a love story in which the lovers knew next to nothing about each other. She even read portions of my essay aloud to the class.

"One student who shall remain unnamed concluded, 'This story applied to a time when courtship required no more of the female than youth and beauty, and no more of the male than flowery speeches and a lack of sensitivity to personal boundaries. It is no coincidence that the third ingredient for an Elizabethan match-made-in-heaven, namely vast wealth, is evident. What would Shakespeare have made of a romance between a dumpy girl and an ill-spoken boy? What would he have made of the romantic urges of the common poor, or of the elderly? This glorification of youth, impetuousness, female submissiveness, and spur-of-the-moment suicide is an insult to high-school students everywhere. Just because Shakespeare said it doesn't make it right.' Not bad for a freshman, am I right, class?"

Bella gave me the sad-puppy eyes a few days later.

"Mrs. Beier read an excerpt of your English paper to my class today. Oh, Renesmee, some day you'll understand-"

"Mom, I know you love that stupid play, but it has got to be the sappiest soap opera in the history of the English language. Seriously. I can't believe we still have to read it. If I ever change my mind, I'll let you know so you can gloat." She just looked pathetically offended and didn't respond.

I took up with a vulgar redheaded boy named Fergus because I had heard my father saying one night that people like Fergus made him rethink his vegetarianism. Fergus really was unbearable, but it was worth it to see the look on Edward's face when I simpered at him from across the quad. Fergus wasn't cruel or bad-tempered or even particularly unintelligent, but he had a filthy mind, and he was sexist and racist and ageist and every other -ist I could think of. I encouraged him to be horrible around Edward, and I only broke up with him after he started telling people that I went down on him in the back of his mom's Dodge Ram. I neither knew nor cared how many people believed him, but to even imagine that I could be turned on in an American car was just too presumptuous to let pass.

* * *

At Christmas break, the family went to New Zealand for two weeks. Emmett showed me how to surf the big waves. Esme had a lovely time buying up Maori carvings to take back to St. John's with us. Jasper mentioned in passing that the only thing he really missed about being human was horseback riding, which sent Alice into a flurry of planning. Our third day in New Zealand, Alice took us all to a huge ranch in Southland and told us she'd bought horseback riding lessons for everyone. We all eyed the horseflesh askance, wondering how they would react to being ridden by hell monsters who could drain them of their blood in three minutes, but Alice assured us she'd looked in on it and the horses would get used to us.

"They let humans ride them, after all," she said very reasonably, "And humans kill animals all the time. Horses just aren't all that smart."

Jasper looked genuinely happy for the first time in months. He and Emmett raced each other around the five-hundred-acre paddock while I was still trying to figure out how to get my sedate mare to turn left and right.

When we returned to St. John's, Jasper joined a stable just so he could ride every day. I'd never seen him so interested in anything. Rosalie speculated that he liked playing Civil War. But Alice shook her head.

"I think he enjoys being away from humans, away from the hunt-away from us, even. The feelings of horses don't intrude on his mind the way ours do. When he's riding, he gets to just be Jasper."

* * *

In spring, I left soccer and joined the swim team. It was easier to hold myself back in the water, because no matter how strong I was, I still wasn't any more hydrodynamic than a human. I didn't tire as easily as my teammates, but sometimes I would run sprints to warm up for swim practice, so that when everyone else was grumbling about sore muscles in the showers afterward I didn't feel left out.

Rosalie had had such fun in theater that she wasted no time auditioning for _Les Miserables_. "Which do you think?" she asked me. "Fantine, Cosette or Eponine? I like how tragic Eponine is, plus I won't have to kiss anyone...but Fantine has some great songs. I could relate to Fantine."

"Either," I said. "Just not Cosette. She's a sap."

"Hmm. Good point. Fantine's kind of a sap, too. Eponine it is!" It was that simple. Rosalie had a marvelous time as the scrappy third wheel. Esme volunteered to help the school's art department with sets, and Edward surprised us all by deigning to play piano in the pit orchestra. Vampires can get a lot done: the sets were nothing less than professional and Rosalie was nominated for an intramural award for her ballsy rendition of "On My Own". _Les Miserables_was a resounding success that year. A fire had been lit in Rosalie that I suspected would not be soon quenched.

"I used to do theater when we went to high schools in the Forties, but the plays back then were mostly about V being for Victory. I'm actually thinking I might want to go to college for this. This summer I want us all to go to New York. I can't believe how long I've survived without Broadway!"

* * *

True to her word, Rosalie swept us down to New York City that summer. The vampires had to make themselves scarce on sunny days, but Jean had also been issued an invitation, so I always had company in my daytime exploring. We went to the Met several times and got sucked into the Art Deco rooms. On a rainy day Rosalie and Alice brought us to Tiffany's and Cartier to ogle the diamonds-Alice surreptitiously bought me a diamond-and-emerald cuff bracelet, which I suspected I would never have a reason to wear, though I sure liked looking at it. Emmett brought us to the Zoo on one overcast Tuesday and nearly got noticed climbing back out of the lions' enclosure.

"I wasn't going to eat them," he explained to Rosalie and me, while we laughed uncontrollably at the expressions on the lions' faces. "I just wanted to see them do something other than lie around."

Carlisle dragged us to Carnegie Hall to hear the famous Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, and then talked our ears off explaining just exactly how much better music was before the Romantic style of playing ruined everything. Edward clenched his teeth all through this lecture. He simply _adored _the masturbatory playing of the mid-twentieth century and would sometimes make me listen to Liszt and Rachmaninoff recordings until my ears bled.

One memorable day, all the family except Edward and Bella came with Jean and me to a Pride Parade. They didn't need to cover up or avoid the sun at all. They weren't even the sparkliest people there. My parents probably went up to the top of the Empire State Building to touch each other's faces and talk about souls, so they missed the look on Emmett's face when he got hit on by no less than a dozen men in assless chaps.

And we saw Wicked four times. I watched Rosalie watching the stage, and she had the most sublime look on her face. I wondered how long it would be before she got herself into Glinda's pink tutu-or Elphaba's dour hat.

* * *

We returned to Newfoundland before school started back up. I hated to admit it, but St. John's was beginning to feel like home. It felt nice to get back into my own bed after a summer away. I tried not to let Edward know this; it only weakened my position that I was a prisoner, and that only a return to Forks could make me happy. He could probably tell, though; I caught him looking at me intently sometimes when I was yukking it up with Jean and my other friends.

"See, Carlie?" he said one afternoon on our way home from school. "Aren't you glad we came out here? I'm so proud of how well you're doing in school. I heard Principal Fetzner thinking-"

"I don't care, Dad," I said shortly. He was right, and it annoyed me. I _did _like my life here. Every time I thought of Jacob, I resolved to sulk forever so they wouldn't get the idea their plan was working; but I was by nature a positive person and I was happy in spite of myself.

My happiness was like ivy climbing up the walls of some abandoned edifice: with it, life was beautiful, but every time I thought of Jacob the ivy was blown aside and the ugliness of my hurt became bluntly unavoidable. I couldn't decide if I wanted to nurture this new life or hack it all away and maybe convince my jerkwad father by my misery that he'd made the wrong choice in bringing me out here.

For my fourth birthday, Alice threw me a lovely party. It was an unseasonably warm and humid September. Alice put together a glorious luau that began an hour before sundown the Saturday after school started. The day had been overcast and the sunset was truly spectacular. Esme roasted a suckling pig with an apple in its mouth. Alice roped Jasper into helping with decorations, and for the whole day he could be seen racing around with tropical flowers and bunches of exotic fruit draped about his person.

The party was everything Alice predicted, of course. Jean and several other honors-English classmates attended, as well as members of all of my athletic teams and several friends of my family members. She wanted to invite the entire school, but backed down before the invitations went out.

"I saw that you wouldn't have as much fun with the whole student body at your party," she told me. "I've got the perfect guest list. I think it's really going to be a hit!"

And it was. Everyone had fun. Jean made me a paper crown to wear and I flounced around giving everyone outrageous orders, which they ignored.

I managed to convince my family not to give me overly ostentatious gifts in front of my friends, and they sort of complied. But the whole time I was laughing and running and wearing a little paper crown, half of my mind was wondering if Jacob had sent anything. What made it worse was the smugness on Edward's face as he watched me open presents.

"Well, Renesmee," he said quietly as I blew out the candles on my four-tier cake, "I'm glad there haven't been any...outbursts." I looked at him sharply. "I can sleep easier, knowing that we're all settled in now."

"You don't sleep, Dad."

"Just a figure of speech, love." He ruffled my hair before I could duck out of the way.

After everyone had gone home, and all my respective family members had gotten started on whatever it was they did at night, I finally nerved up to check under my pillow.

And there it was, badly-wrapped and still warm: a wee clay sculpture of a rabbit, poised in flight. I heard Jacob's voice in my head, saying the last thing I'd ever heard from him. _Nessie, are you okay?_ It bounced around inside my skull, picking up speed. _Are you okay? You okay? Okay, okay, okay?_

I put the rabbit and my greyhound in a Ziplock bag and fastened it around my waist, then climbed out my window as I had one year before. I took a flying leap over the cliff that dropped off two yards beyond our back porch, sending a tidal splash up on the rocks as I landed, and began a steady butterfly stroke down the beach. I planned on circling Newfoundland and crossing the channel to the mainland, but halfway through I cut back and struck off through forest. I changed my mind ten more times that night, in an effort to keep Alice off my trail, and by dawn I was as tired as I had ever been. I climbed the tallest tree I could find and passed out on a wide branch. But I must have been tossing and turning in my sleep, because I fell out at noon, right into Emmett's big arms.

I was so frustrated I began to scream a banshee's scream, wordless and high and blistering. My noise brought the rest of my family, who had been fanned out over the surrounding several miles, searching for me. I scratched at Emmett's face, hurting him not a whit, and then started to curse like a Marine at Edward. He began to scold me in those despicably even tones, when Rosalie snapped,

"Let it go, Edward. She has a right to hate you, you know." He shut up as quickly as if she'd smacked him, and I was carried back to St. John's in silence.


	3. Surprisingly, Romance

I spent more time swimming laps in the ocean and threw myself into rugby, not that the humans I played with ever presented much of an obstacle to me. But I liked the informal camaraderie of the guys on the team. They were all posturing so hard as Big Tough Men that the opposite effect was achieved and I found them endearingly, sweetly innocent. It helped that they were some of the most gorgeous bodies in the whole school.

By far the hottest guy in the club was Jonathan Forth, although admittedly I did have a type, and he was It. He was a junior who shared a lot of classes with my mother. He was half-white, with something native or maybe asian sprinkled generously over the other half, and he was tall and leanly-muscled. Jonathan was unbelievably cool. He played rugby and soccer, and he wore his shiny black hair in a ponytail that fell halfway down his back. Every straight girl in school was at least partially in love with him, because he was courteous and good-humored as well as dreamy.

After a year playing rugby with him it hadn't escaped me that in certain lights Jonathan's gorgeous bone structure almost looked like Jacob's, and his long ponytail was exactly like Jake's hair would look if he ever grew it out. His skin, golden and glowing, was as smooth as a baby's.

So in October, when all the girls on my swim team started gossiping about how Jonathan and his girlfriend from Mount Pearl had just split up, I was interested, but I didn't have any expectations. It didn't seem likely that handsome, adored Jonathan would ask out an underclassman, and I wasn't confident enough to ask him myself, although any mirror in the world should have given me what confidence I lacked. The gangly preteen body of a year ago was well past. I was several inches taller, for one thing. As Emmett liked to say, I had legs up to my ass. Esme liked to tell me that genes made me pretty, but smiling made me beautiful. And I smiled an awful lot. Especially around Jonathan.

That was before what I came to think of as D-Day-Delirious Day. The weeks leading up to D-Day had been depressing ones for me, and frustrating, even though there had been no alteration to my daily life that might account for such sudden mood swings. Everyone assumed it was just ordinary adolescent anxiety. Edward kept muttering that he didn't like this new, hormonal version of me, which I thought was a little high-handed coming from the eternal seventeen-year-old. I sensed that there was some important difference to this new feeling; I knew what it felt like to be PMSing, and this wasn't it. I had the feeling that there was something I should know, something I should do, and it was right there at the tip of my consciousness...

Then one morning I felt different. I felt...excited, and optimistic, and the feeling grew stronger as the day went on. By the time I got to school, I was feeling a pleasurable, thrumming thrill in my bones, the feeling I had always associated with Jacob. I wondered if he was coming to St. John's and the imprint was picking up on it, but I didn't quite have the nerve to hope.

By the end of rugby practice, I was feeling positively victorious-and not just because I had kicked ass on the pitch. I hardly felt like myself, which was probably why I did something so totally out of character for me.

I hit on Jonathan Forth.

"Can I bum a ride?" It surprised me to hear the words coming out of my mouth. Even my voice sounded different somehow, pitched lower, flirty in a way I'd never mastered before this moment.

"Hop in. Where do you live?" From the side Jonathan looked so much like Jacob it made my chest hurt. Then he gave me a smile and faded back into himself; the fantasy that if I squinted he would morph into Jacob was unsustainable. His smiles had nothing on Jake's; they were warm and sweet and happy, sure; but _nothing_, I thought viciously, could _ever _compare to the smile of the beloved. In a way, it was a relief: if they had been too much alike I might have thrown up from homesickness.

And I couldn't deny there was a strange excitement in being in Jonathan Forth's car, heading east.

We had known each other since I came to St. John's over a year ago, had kidded around and been physical in the way that only emotionally confused teenage teammates could be. But we knew next to nothing about each other's lives. I started telling him about Forks, the rez and all the kids I'd played with. I left out only the two most important details: that I was a half-vampire daughter of vampires, and that my heart was stuck three thousand miles west, pinned against the Pacific with my imprint.

The longing in my voice must have been obvious, though, because Jonathan said, "You really miss it, don't you?"

"More than words can say. The rez kids and I used to have these races..." I was thinking of Jake chasing after me through the Quileute woods, pretending to bash into trees and trip over roots so I could win.

"We could race," Jonathan offered hopefully.

"Now?"

"Uh...I was actually thinking we could do it this wee-"

"Do you have anywhere to be?" I interrupted.

"No, but I mean, it's almost seven, don't you need to get ho-"

"Let's do it now!" I suggested delightedly. "I know a beach, it's only like a mile away, can we race now? Please?" Jonathan laughed and gave in. I'd never heard myself this impetuous before, or this imperious. But I didn't mind it. I felt invulnerable, surfing a wave of euphoria that had nothing to do with me.

We found the beach and agreed that whoever first made it to the big ass piece of driftwood a quarter mile away would be the Winner of All Things Beachly. I kicked off my sneakers and dug my toes into the chilly, wet sand. Jonathan cocked an eyebrow and smirked a little, and left his shoes on.

We both tried to cheat and start running before "Go," so we ended up taking off evenly. I drew ahead a little; Jonathan's shoes actually were dragging him down a little, but he put on an burst of speed and reached the driftwood at nearly the same moment as me. I didn't tell him that I wasn't trying very hard. I couldn't let a human see how fast I could go when I went full throttle. Of course, we both immediately claimed victory. Jonathan did some kind of uncoordinated jig, and while he had one foot in the air I took a flying leap at him. We both sprawled in the sand, giggling like ten-year-olds. I hadn't had anywhere near this much fun since Jake. I managed to hoist myself on top of him and pin his arms.

"Uncle! Say uncle!" There was no real reason for Jonathan not to simply throw me off of him; I was strong but I wasn't heavy, and I knew he could lift my weight easily. But he didn't, because the moment had suddenly become very tremendous.

"Carlie," he started. I could feel the heat of his body underneath mine. I was half-sitting, half-crouching over his solar plexus, and had insinuated my feet about his legs. "You're something else," he said softly. He pulled himself up to a sitting position, wrists still pinned to the sand, and I had a half second to decide whether to go through with this. But then he kissed me so gently my heart almost cracked, and I stopped trying to decide anything at all. It was over much too soon. I released his wrists and leaned in to kiss him again and again, on the lips, the temple, the throat. I lingered over the place where his pulse thudded irregularly beneath his jaw, and heard it accelerate to a rabbit's pace. His hands began cautiously to travel up to my hips, then up my sides and under my shirt, where they moved in warm circles across my back; I was a little disappointed that his hands stayed respectfully between my pants and my bra. Just as I was debating whether to introduce a little tongue or run away, a fat raindrop landed right in my eye.

"Damn it!" I shouted.

"Fucking rain. _Fucking rain_," Jonathan agreed. We had to scramble back to his car, but still ended up soaked. The drive to my house was a humid one. When we reached the crescent drive of the mansion, he turned to me and asked, "Carlie...could I drive you home tomorrow?"

"Okay!" I said brightly. I leaned over and kissed him, and then hopped out with no further ado. He looked like he'd been whacked with a two-by-four. "See you tomorrow!"

* * *

Alice was waiting on the front porch. "Your parents were worried about you, honey. You didn't tell anyone where you were going."

I gulped. "Um...did you happen to tell anybody where I went?" Alice's pixie-like face lit up in a saucy grin.

"Definitely not. And I promise I won't tell them unless you say it's okay. But Edward's going to find out anyway, and he'll go crazy when he does."

"Oh lord, don't remind me," I groaned as I followed her into the house.

"I know you were just dating that Fergus kid to annoy your parents, but I have a feeling they aren't going to find this so easy to take." Something in her voice warned me.

"Why?" I asked sharply. "What do you mean?" Alice pursed her lips into a prim little rosebud.

"I didn't look in on you very much-just enough to make sure you weren't going to be abducted or fall under a bus. But I saw who you were with and I saw how your face looked and...oh honey, Edward might not take it that well, that's all."

"What are you talking about, Alice? What did I look like? And what's wrong with Jonathan? He's really cool."

"I know he is, and it's probably nothing, but he looks a lot like Jacob, and you were sort of looking at him the way you used to look at Jacob, and I do know why your father brought us all out here. I just don't want you to get hurt, sweetie." Her words pained me because they were spot-on.

"Jonathan does _not _look like Jacob," I said, even though only an hour before I'd been thinking the same thing. "_Nobody_ looks like Jacob. I would never compare Jonathan to Jake, _never_, because comparison is completely impossible." I started to talk faster and faster as all the things I didn't know how to say came pouring out. "Edward ruined my life, Alice, he ripped me away from my soul mate. All I want to do is go back to him, I'd run if I had to, but it's no use! You all have me so tightly battened down that all I can do is struggle to get by! Jonathan is _nothing _to Jacob, but at least he's nice, and funny, and he makes me feel a little more like a person. Edward can't take anything more away from me, there's nothing else to take. He's already hurt me as much as he can. Can't he let me lick my wounds in peace?" Alice's face was screwed up into an expression of exquisite suffering and sympathy. Her arms went around me and she murmured,

"Darling, honey, I'll talk to Edward, I'll make him see reason. You know he listens to me. Don't worry about it. We all just want you to be happy, do you know that? You are the light of this family. We can't stand to see you unhappy for a single minute. Even your father. And definitely me. You're my girl. Do you believe me?"

"I know," I mumbled. I could rely on her; Alice could get my father to do almost anything. They probably had the strongest bond of any of the Cullens-other than the bond between mates, of course. They really were like brother and sister. Whatever was in her head made its way into his eventually, one way or another.

"Alice, can I ask you a favor?"

"Anything!"

"Can you please stop looking into my future?" Her perfect face fell. "It's not that I want to block you out but Edward..."

"...Sees what I see."

"Yeah." We were silent a moment. "I just want to try to have a normal life-well, as normal as I can have, anyway. Edward's mind-reading is just a way to keep me shackled. And when he has access to my futures, too, I feel so trapped."

Alice flashed her sharp white teeth in a smile. "Okay, Renesmee, if it's that important to you I'll butt out. I haven't really had a chance to get used to seeing your future anyway; I never saw it clearly until..." She broke off, afraid she'd strayed too far into sensitive territory.

"Until you got me away from Jacob," I sighed. "I know. Hey, and one more thing?"

"Yes?"

"Please don't tell him about this-I mean about what you saw me doing. I don't think he realizes how fast I'm growing. He treats me like I'm four."

"Renesmee, you _are _four," Alice twinkled.

I had to laugh. Alice could make anything better.

* * *

The following Monday was a rare sunny day, so my family had all gone off to hunt. Rosalie was dropping me off, but she was thirsty, so she didn't stick around to see me go in. Jonathan was nominally chatting with a group of soccer guys, but he wasn't really paying attention to them. He kept glancing around the student body and actually broke off mid-sentence as soon as he saw me. The guys gave him funny looks as he bounded down the steps toward me with a huge grin plastered on his face. He was unbelievably adorable, like an adolescent Great Dane, all long-limbed bouncing energy.

"Hey, Crusher!"

"Hey, man!"

"You were in my dreams last night."

"Oh my god, Jonathan, people don't say that in real life. You're such a dork." But I was laughing, so he knew I didn't mean it.

"When can I drive you home again? Now?"

"Well, school hasn't even started, so..."

"And?" He was teasing but he obviously wanted to get the hell out of here. I thought about it. It wasn't really all that important for me to show up to class, since I was well ahead of the curve. Besides, Jasper could get me a dozen different high-school diplomas in less than a week. I probably shouldn't lure Jonathan down the same delinquent path. But I was just itching to give some sort of fuck-you to Edward; and besides, he looked so eager.

"Yeah."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Let's do it."

"Great!" Jonathan bubbled. "I already called in sick!" _Wow_. We raced out to the parking lot. "I want to show you something."

He wouldn't tell me where we were going. All I knew was that we were headed inland. He probably didn't mean to murder me and dump my body in a ditch, but if he did, the surprise would be on him. After about a half hour of driving Jonathan parked on the gravel near a lake. It glittered prettily in the sun. I knew that in summer months it would be packed with tourists, but it was already October and no one was here but us.

"Cool lake," I said.

"That's not the best part. Come see my baby."

"You...have a baby?"

"This!" Jonathan steered me over to a small and fairly shabby boathouse which held a tiny sailboat. "My sloop! Her name's Stella. I thought since the weather's so awesome, maybe we could go sailing. I wanted to do it today because it's supposed to rain this weekend."

"Jonathan, that is the best idea I have ever heard in my life," I said excitedly. "I don't know anything about sailing, but I definitely know how to not drown when I fall out of a boat. And this is a perfect day for not drowning."

Luckily, Jonathan knew everything we needed to know about sailing, and the sky remained a perfect, velvety blue without a single cloud in view. I leaned back in the boat and trailed my fingers in the water. The day was warm and getting warmer, but the water was brisk. I kicked off my shoes to let my toes dangle in the lake. Then I took off my sweatshirt. The sun felt amazing. The breeze tickled my scalp and the sparkles on the water reflected on my skin till I shone like a vampire.

"I miss the sun," I said. "I've never lived anywhere with sunshine, and when it does finally get sunny all I want to do is bask in it. Like a lizard."

"Yeah. It's always overcast here. We have like, the highest percentage of rainy days in Canada or some shit like that. I lived in Calgary with my dad a few years ago, but I came back here to live with my mom and go to highschool."

"Do you miss your dad?"

"Eh." Jonathan's tone could not possibly be more dismissive. "He's okay, I guess, but I miss Calgary a lot more than I miss him. He wasn't really that involved. I only lived with him so my mom could take a sabbatical abroad without uprooting me. She's a professor of Anthropology at Memorial University."

"Is she...what, First Nations, or something? You look..."

"Beothuk, actually."

"Be-what-now?"

"Be-aw-thook," he said again. "And Japanese. And some other stuff. No one's full-blooded Beothuk any more, but lots of people in Newfoundland have a little. My dad's just white though."

We trailed our hands companionably in the water for a half hour, then Jonathan asked,

"What about your family? I am dying to know how that all works out."

"Oh, it's kinda weird." We'd tried to come up with a plausible story but in this time of federalized foster care, each idea seemed less likely than the last. We finally had to settle on a mixture of blood and friendship. "So, Bella and I grew up in Forks, our mom died when we were really little and then five years ago our dad got deployed to Afghanistan. Dr. Cullen was really good friends with our dad, so he and Esme looked after us whenever Dad was gone, which was a lot..." This was the hardest part of the story to pull off, every time. I had to imagine I was talking about my separation from Jacob instead of some imaginary dead dad or else the emotions didn't ring true.

"Anyway, he didn't come back from deployment, so we just all stick together now. Dr. Cullen and Esme are Alice's real parents, but they took in Edward when he was little, when his parents died, so they grew up together. He's Esme's cousin. Then Emmett came to visit them a few years ago because his parents were going through a bad divorce-he's Carlisle's nephew-and he just kind of stuck around. Emmett's like that. And Rosalie and Jasper were in foster care for about a year after their mom and dad died, and they met Carlisle through some outreach program a few summers ago, so they live with us now. We're just a big family of orphans, really."

Jonathan looked sad and caring. What a guy. "I'm so sorry about your parents, Carlie, you must miss your dad so much-" I cut him off because I felt weird about accepting sympathy based on a complete fabrication.

"Well, I mean, Bella always took care of me when Dad was away before, and we're all kind of old enough to look after ourselves now, so it's more just that Carlisle keeps us out of foster care. We are an unorthodox family, but we like it that way. Carlisle's great, he's a really good man. I'm not all that upset about it. I mean, my dad wasn't around that much growing up, it was always just me and Bella and the Cullens. We all played together when we were little. They feel more like family to me than my dad ever did. I don't miss him all that much. Just Forks. And all my friends on the rez there." A wave of remorse hit me-why had I thought it was a good idea to dredge up Forks?-but Jonathan did some rapid damage control.

"I'm glad you're here," he said. "I'm glad I know you. You don't seem like anyone else." I laughed darkly.

"You have no idea."

"How old are you?"

"Just turned fifteen. How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"That's not a big difference."

"No." He was smiling foolishly again.

"Hey, Jonathan? I'm kinda hot."

His Adam's apple bobbed nervously. "You are?"

"Yeah. Can we weigh anchor and go swimming?"

Relief and disappointment flooded his face. The boy had no secrets. I wondered uneasily if I was using some kind of vampiric lust-magic on him. If Rosalie had even breathed in the direction of any of the guys in her class, they'd have come running faster than a shot. All the vampires were like that. Their sex appeal was so _obvious_. It actually made it kind of hard for them to make friends, not that they really wanted human companionship. I hadn't had any difficulty making friends, once I made up my mind to do it. And Jonathan didn't have that dazed look that girls got around Edward. He looked sort of goofily happy, but not delirious. But then, I was only half-vampire.

I was also definitely overthinking this. While Jonathan fiddled with the anchor, I stripped out of my jeans and shirt. I made the boat wobble, but I had superhuman reflexes and it didn't wobble much. Then I plunged into the lake. Jonathan turned and saw my clothes heaped in the bottom of the boat. His eyes grew wide as teacups and darted to where I was frollicking. Off came the shirt, the pants. He was wearing briefs. How cosmopolitan. Then he cannonballed in.

We spent a splendid couple of hours splashing each other and racing through the water. We tried to have a breath-holding contest, but when I didn't come up after four minutes Jonathan panicked and dove in after me. I bobbed to the surface and laughed at his fear, which made him laugh too in a rush of adrenaline.

We got hungry at about one and Jonathan brought us back to dry land. Gravelly sand was in my toes and I could feel the drips from my still-wet hair falling onto the slightly sunburned skin of my shoulders. I might be half-vampire, but it would take a lot more than that to overcome my mother's extreme whiteness. And I hadn't been cutting my hair the past year. Bella thought it looked prettier the longer it got, and I didn't have much of an opinion either way, so I gave in. It was easier like that; when Bella didn't get her way, she tended to become so mopey it was a pain just to be around her.

Jonathan's increasingly nervous fidgeting finally brought me out of my reverie. He swallowed a couple times and said, "Carlie?"

"Yeah?"

"Will you...be my girlfriend?"

"What, like, exclusively?"

"Well, yeah." He was so cute. So earnest and sweet, so refreshingly anti-Edward.

"Okay." Jonathan crinkled his eyes joyfully and collected me in his arms for a long, PG-13 kiss that felt as safe and as pleasurable as a warm bubble bath. For a moment I thought about Jacob, but Jacob wasn't here right now and Jonathan was. I could do this.

I pushed my imprint out of my mind and dove into Jonathan's kiss.

* * *

Sadly, after a big lunch we did have to head back to St. John's and reality.

"Please assure me that we will do this again some time?" I asked.

"Any time. No, really, _any time at all_." He actually meant it. If I had called him in the middle of the night and asked him to meet me at the ole haunted mine-shaft he would have gotten there first, human legs be damned. He was steering with one hand; the other was making soft curlicues at the nape of my neck, which was nice.

"Jonathan, can I ask something of you?"

"Anything." What a foolish thing to say, but I didn't intend to take advantage.

"Can we agree to not..._broadcast_this?"

"Oh." His hand stopped caressing and he looked crestfallen. "Do you not want people to know?"

"Oh, I don't mind them knowing that we're, you know, _together_. I would just really like it if maybe the _details _could be kept quite close, if you know what I mean."

"Oh. I think so." He blinked, confused. "...Details?"

"It's only that I have a lot of brothers and sisters who go to school with us, and they are all just terrifically protective of me. If they get even a hint that we skipped school to go swim in our skivvies in a lake, they would very likely break something."

"I see."

"That something would be you."

"Uh..."

"And if you are broken I don't see any realistic chance of having you do this with me again, some golden day in the future, and that would make me sad."

He didn't know whether to take this as a joke, or be offended, or what; but as luck had it the first person we saw when we pulled into the school parking lot was Emmett, waiting by his car for me to leave school. Emmett looked even more vastly huge than usual.

"Oh my god." Jonathan blanched. "Am I going to die?"

"No, you're okay, Emmett's cool. But just...I think if Edward finds out about this he might very well kill you by accident when all he meant to do was cut on you a little. Just don't even think about it when you're around him. Like, at all. Don't picture me naked, whatever you do." Jonathan rolled his eyes.

"Well, _now_..."

"Just think of...think of the tortoise exhibit at the zoo. Or Tinker Toys. Something." Emmett had heard us and turned our way.

"Okay. I promise. I'm not usually afraid of getting beat up, but..." Emmett was waving cheerfully, which drew attention to every exquisitely-defined muscle flexing in his bicep.

"It's okay, everyone's scared of Emmett. Which is funny, 'cause he's the normal one. Welp, see you tomorrow!" I kissed Jonathan on the cheek and bounded out to give Emmett a bear hug.

"You're in a good mood. Have fun skipping class?"

"Yep. Have fun eating poor defenseless predators?"

"Yep. I had a killer whale. It was pretty good. I'm saving up for a polar bear, though. We're going further north next time. Esme's making me promise not to eat an endangered animal unless it looks like it's on the way out. She's such a killjoy."

"You're not gonna tell on me, are you?"

"C'mon, Ness, would I?"

"No, I guess not." I settled back in my seat and enjoyed the ride home.


	4. Drawbacks of a Mind Reading Father

**I like getting reviews, if you don't mind writing them; they are enormously helpful as I continue to write this story and also make me warm and fuzzy on my insides. Thanks for reading!**

* * *

Word got around school very quickly that I was dating Jonathan Forth. I found that a lot of the girls on the swim team were not pleased, and hastened to tell me all the terrible things they'd heard about Jonathan.

"I heard his last girlfriend dumped him because he's a sex addict. He gave her a UTI!"

"No, the problem is he can't keep it up. Sara dumped him 'cause-"

"I thought they got in that huge fight at the IMAX over in Mount Pearl, about, what was it-"

"Huh," was all I had to say to these. I didn't care that much about his previous girlfriend. And since we weren't having sex-yet-I wasn't too ruffled by references to his sexual prowess. I could cross that bridge when I got there. Assuming I ever did.

The rugby team was annoyed when they first found out. I think they expected to see us cuddling and being disgusting at our rugby matches. But now that we were on a first-tongue basis, we found ourselves running faster, throwing further, and tackling harder than we ever had before. We were pushing ourselves and everyone else. The rugby team got _really good_, and still they could barely keep up with us. The Mayor of Boys' Town had to put us on opposite teams or else there wouldn't be much of a game. But with Jonathan and me on opposing teams, everyone went home bruised and bloody. They were too tired to complain. We weren't tired. We usually scurried off to his car, often without even troubling to shower, so we could snatch a half hour of tonsil hockey and dry-humping before Edward started to track me down.

Jonathan began taking detours between his classes to walk me to mine. He tried to carry my books, but I gave him a look of mocking disgust and he let it go. He was bummed that we didn't have any classes together, but we still sat together at lunch and he convinced Edward to let him drive me home after rugby.

I had no idea how he accomplished that; Edward was obviously blowing a gasket about this. Alice and Jasper generally managed to keep him from doing anything crazy, but they weren't always around. Edward had tersely given his permission, provided that I check in with him constantly and never let that boy get "fresh" with me. I tried to keep them away from each other; Edward was stretched to the breaking point as it was, and I couldn't be entirely sure that Jonathan would heed my warning about picturing me naked when Edward was around. I didn't even know if he'd be _able _to. He was only seventeen, for pity's sake.

Then, one Friday afternoon, Edward was waiting for me at my locker after school when I showed up with Jonathan.

"Hunting trip this weekend," Edward said quietly. "I've put it off too long already. Esme and Carlisle are staying home, they went last weekend, so don't even think you can-"

Then, too fast, vampire-speed, he spun around and caught Jonathan by the neck. Jonathan's eyes went huge just before his head made a cracking noise against the school lockers; I prayed it was just the metal giving way.

"How _dare _you think such a thing? You don't ever, _ever _take that liberty with Renesmee, do you hear me?"

"Edward!" I shrieked. People were gathering. "Humans need to breathe!" I pried his fingers away from my boyfriend's throat, one at a time. I doubted anyone but me realized that Edward's eyes were almost black. He'd placed everyone in danger, holding off on hunting, just so he could spy on me at school. What a freak. "Jeez, _Dad_. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Watch your mouth, young lady. I will speak to you about this later." He reluctantly released Jonathan. There was no blood, thank goodness; if Jonathan had bled my father might not have been able to resist, not when he was this thirsty. But there was a huge dent in the locker. It looked like Jonathan's hair had absorbed enough of the blow to keep it from being too serious, but he looked badly shaken. Edward grabbed me by the arm, not tightly but immovably, and dragged me out to the car. I looked back at Jonathan. He was staring after me over the heads of the people who were closing in around him. He looked totally bewildered and very freaked out. I thought that with a very little provocation he might run after us, so I forced myself to look away. I had to keep Edward from killing my boyfriend.

Edward was silent the whole way home. Bella kept looking from him to me and back. She didn't know what was wrong, but obviously _something _was. I was starting to shake in the back seat. If I wasn't careful, I might even cry.

When we got back to the house, Alice, Jasper, Emmett and Rosalie had already left. Edward and Bella stood with me in the living room, the silence stretching out until Bella finally broke it.

"What's going on, Edward? Why is my daughter holding back tears?"

"He just _threw _my _boyfriend _at a _wall_, Mom!" I wailed. "In front of _everybody_! He moved way too fast, he could have killed Jonathan. _Why can't you stop ruining my life, Edward_?" Bella gasped.

"Is this true, Edward?" He nodded gravely. "Well, was he hurt?"

"I don't think so. I believe I managed to contain myself before he was seriously injured."

"But Edward, why?" My mother was so beautiful, so trusting-she trusted that Edward had a good reason, and that soon everything would be back to normal. What an idiot.

"He was thinking..._impure thoughts _about our daughter." He turned to me. "Renesmee, I need you to tell me if what I saw in his head really happened or if it was just a fantasy."

"How would I know? I can't barge in on people's minds like you can. And even if I could, I wouldn't."

"Renesmee, he pictured...a lake. And you. That's all I'll say."

Oh. It seemed Jonathan had been remembering our truant day of underwear-swimming. From the way Edward was acting, I could only assume that Jonathan had embellished his memories significantly. Or maybe Edward was such a psycho that just the thought of a boy seeing my fruit-o'-the-looms unhinged him.

"It's just a lake, Dad. He took me sailing."

"Renesmee, I may not be able to convince you to take your safety seriously, but I would think that even you might have a care for your own virtue."

"My _virtue_? Christ, Dad, it's not the Great War anymore. Just because you were a hundred-year-old virgin doesn't mean I have to be."

"You are _four years old_, Renesmee."

"Well, I'm in highschool and I have boobs and a period, _Dad_, so who cares?"

"Renesmee," said my mom softly, "Honey, did you use protection?" Here she was, looking all worried for nothing.

"Don't worry, Mom, we haven't actually had sex yet." And now we never would.

"Oh." The relief was palpable. "Edward, teenage boys just have these thoughts. Can't you-"

"No teenage boy gets to have _that _thought, _that _vividly, about _my _daughter. Renesmee, go to your room. If you even think about leaving or calling that boy or _anything _other than your homework, we will leave this place and never look back."

"Right," I answered bitterly, "That's your answer to everything. Every time your wicked sinful adolescent daughter thinks about sex, you take away everything that makes her happy. Thanks, Dad. Thanks a lot." I stormed up to my room and thought about Jonathan for a while, but the thoughts wouldn't stick. My mind kept drifting off toward Jacob. I wanted him here so badly, to give me a big warm hug and stroke my hair and make me feel like maybe everything would be okay.

I heard my door swing open. Bella walked in on silent feet.

"Baby? Why don't you tell me your side, honey."

"Oh, _Mom_." Tears squeezed hotly out of the corners of my eyes. "After we left Forks-, I just...I just couldn't feel anything but pain. And I still feel pain but at least when I'm with Jonathan it's a little better, I can focus on other things. But now, now he's never going to want to see me again, and I'll never see Jacob again, and I just want to _die_!" I sobbed openly. Bella pulled me into her fragrant, smooth arms and stroked my hair.

"Oh honey, I know. Your father is just scared right now. He doesn't want to lose you, Renesmee. You're growing up too fast for him-for all of us. But I understand, I really do."

"How? You _don't _understand-"

"You'd be surprised," she said. "When your dad left me, back when I was still human, I didn't think I could bear so much pain and live. But my best friend helped me through it. I might have died if it hadn't been for Jacob. I don't want you to feel that, not ever."

"But you still let him take me away from Jake."

"I know, baby, but this isn't permanent. We'll go back there someday, and you'll see Jake, and he'll give you a big smile and a hug, and everything that ever hurt you won't seem to matter anymore."

"How do you know?"

"Sweetie, that's love. I'll talk to your father about Jonathan. I have some classes with him and he's always been very nice. Your father doesn't want to hurt you, baby. He thinks he's protecting you this way. But he'll come around. Try not to think about Jonathan or Jake tonight. You know what?"

"What?" She was stroking my hair and it felt nice. Why couldn't Edward ever be like this to me?

"I'll send Edward and Carlisle out to hunt, and they'll send the girls back. We'll have a girls' weekend. No boys allowed. And we'll let Jasper and Carlisle work on your father. By Monday, this will all start to look a lot better."

"Okay. I'd like that." Bella kissed me on the forehead with cool perfect lips, and played with my hair until I fell asleep. Just before I dropped off, I slipped my hand into hers and showed her a picture of Jonathan asking me to be his girlfriend. His face melted into Jacob's, and then they both evaporated into formless dream. My mother stayed by my side until she heard the girls opening the front door. I didn't wake up until the next morning.

* * *

Our girls' weekend was helpful, surprisingly. I knew I couldn't be distracted from the awfulness of the situation, but none of them tried to make me stop thinking about it, they just cheered me up around the corners of my upset. Esme woke me with waffles and fresh fruit and a still-bleeding leg of lamb. Everyone watched me eat and talked about boys-well, male vampires. Rosie offered to help me wash up the breakfast dishes and when we were in the kitchen she whispered,

"I left something in your room for you. Middle drawer in the stand next to the bed. You might need them." She winked suggestively and giggled in a most un-Rosalie-like way.

"Oh. Really? You think Edward's going to let me out of the house any time soon?"

"All I know is it's better to be prepared." And we went back to the others.

We spent the morning cliff-diving until I was too exhausted to continue. Then Esme made me a huge lunch. She could cook damn well for a woman who was on a permanent diet of animal blood, but then Beethoven was deaf and he managed. After lunch we had races. I couldn't really keep up with the others-I was freakishly fast compared to a human, but a vampire could top a hundred with a tailwind. But I enjoyed it anyway. Rosalie was the fastest, so sometimes for a handicap I would climb on her back. It didn't slow her down much. To me it felt like flying.

The next day Rosalie and Alice took me shopping. Bella groaned and begged off, and Esme agreed that it would be more fun for just the three of us to go.

I didn't usually wear the designer clothes that Alice and Rosalie favored. I didn't mind them, they just had little place in my life. But Alice steered me right past the fancy dress stores and into the most expensive underwear boutique in St. John's. She waved off the sales associates who hovered around us and began to chirp happily about underwear.

She loaded me up with a dozen bras and sent me into the dressing room. I couldn't believe the difference these things made. I didn't technically need to wear a bra for daily support; my breasts were firm and well-formed, and they were in no danger from gravity. I could thank Edward and his vampire DNA for that. I tended to stick to boring sports bras, out of habit and to keep things from shifting around too much at rugby. Jonathan hadn't seemed to find my plain boob-holsters offensive in the least. But these things were _insane_. I looked so hot I just had to come out and give Rosalie and Alice a fashion show. They whooped and hollered and had a grand time. Then they started trying things on and we all got carried away.

"Emmett likes exciting underwear," Rosalie confided. "I have more nipple-less bras than I could possibly have a use for." We advised her on a rhinestone-encrusted number that, combined with her gloriously blown-out golden hair and full lips, made her look deliciously stripper-esque, and another made of moroccan leather.

Alice had a different angle. "Jasper likes the classy look, but I like the whimsical look. I want to get something for us both." Rosalie and I took this challenge very seriously and Alice ended up with several adorable bras with quirky sides, like the virgin-blue satin bustier embroidered all over with frolicking dolphins. It was _so _Alice.

I was a little more difficult to shop for. I tried on tons of bras, and they all looked amazing against my toned body-even though Alice and Rosalie were far stronger than me, I looked the most athletic. It probably had something to do with the fact that I still had a pulse. Rosalie wanted to get me something unabashedly sexy, but Alice thought that might be too much.

"Well," I said, "Jonathan seems to like my lame underwear just fine, maybe we don't need to get anything too crazy." Rosalie snorted.

"I'm sure he does like your underwear _just fine_-I know Emmett would be perfectly happy to have me just walk around in a burlap sack all day. This isn't about Jonathan. It's about having something special that makes _you _feel good. What was your favorite, hon? Maybe you should just go from there." I picked out my five favorite bras-Alice wanted to get me at least twenty, but I assured her five would be more than enough considering I still had to wear a sports bra most days for practical reasons. I got a black chiffon one that was sheer enough to show _everything._

"Every girl needs at least one black bra," advised Rosalie sagely.

"For funerals?" I asked. Rosalie just snickered.

Then Alice made me get what she deemed a "quirky" bra made of fabric printed with John Tenniel illustrations and Rosalie made me get something a little more kinky, just so I could decide if I liked them in action. All in all, we spent over three thousand dollars in the store, and it was only ten-thirty.

The rest of the day we looked for clothes and shoes. Rosalie and I spent half an hour in a sporting-goods store while Alice picked imaginary dust out of her nails and laughed at us. Alice bought some nice shirts for my mom and some sewing supplies for Esme, who had started to take an interest in sewing again now that the house was more or less perfect. At five thirty Alice got her concentrating-on-a-vision look and she suddenly beamed at me.

"Renesmee, great news!"

"My father fell off a cliff?"

"Psh, like that would hurt him. No, the boys are talking Edward down, they're going to come back soon. Everything's going to be fine!"

So we drove home. Rosalie agreed to hide my bras with hers and transfer them to my closet when Edward wasn't around-no sense rubbing my intentions right in his face. Edward looked mournful when we got there, but he didn't look angry anymore.

"Renesmee, will you step out with me?" he asked. We headed out toward a cliff half a mile away. I could tell Edward was feeling very awkward, which was unusual for him. Usually his holier-than-thou snideness could carry him through any confrontation.

"Renesmee, I know you hate me right now." I grunted and didn't deny it. "I will probably never convince you that I am just trying to do what's best. I know you think I hate Jacob but you're wrong. I could never dislike anyone who loves you as much as I know he does."

"Then why'd you take me away from him?" My voice was going to crack, oh _no_.

"Renesmee, when I had a glimpse of your mind-_that day_-it terrified me, it really did. You were two years old. You're only four now. I know that you are maturing faster than any other living person, but there are some things that can only be acquired with time, no matter what you look like on the outside or how quickly you learn. You can't rush experience, my darling.

"Once I saw that Jacob had never thought of you that way, I wasn't angry anymore. I know he's never done anything indecent and he would never hurt you. But...Renesmee, you're my baby girl. When I was human I always thought I would get married and have children, lots of them, and then grandchildren. I wanted it. I wanted some stability. And then-well, I'm not sorry Carlisle turned me because how else could I have met your mother? But for ninety years I thought the path of fatherhood was closed to me. And then Bella got pregnant and for awhile we thought we would lose you both, but you both survived. You are everything to me. You're everything to the whole family. And we had to turn Bella to save her life, so I knew I could never have another child for all of eternity. I want to get this right. I want to do the right thing for you. But I can't always figure out what the right thing is."

"Dad, please, please let me go back to Jacob. I _need _him. We need each other. Please, Dad, _please-_"

"Renesmee, why don't we make a deal? If you stay here, make an honest attempt at this place for the next three years, and you graduate from St. Augustine's, your graduation present will be Forks." My heart leapt. It had to be a trick. My father never said anything straight and he rarely respected either Bella or me enough to tell us what was really on his mind. Edward had given me to believe that this exile might last decades. Three years was still far too long, but compared to what I had looked forward to...

"Do you mean that?"

"We'll tell the whole family so neither of us can back out. But you have to try, Renesmee, really try. I know you've been miserable-even if I couldn't read your thoughts I'd still know. I can tell that Jonathan is making you feel better. Bella says he's a very nice kid. But I need you to answer me one thing. Have you been seeing this boy just to get back at me?"

I thought carefully and said, "At first, maybe a little. Well, that was part of it. But now..." I placed my hand over his wrist and showed him the same picture I'd shown my mother: Jonathan, smiling in the sunlight, his dark eyes crinkled up with pleasure.

"I understand," my father sighed. "All I want is for you to stay a little girl. You're only four, you should still be in braids." I scowled and he hastily continued. "But you're not in braids. You're a young woman now. Esme says she thinks you're at least sixteen physically, and I've always known you were more mature mentally than other kids. Is dating Jonathan a part of being happy in St. John's?"

"For now, he is," I said. "I mean, he's no Jacob, but..."

"I know," Edward sighed. "Okay. If this is really what you want, I'll apologize at school tomorrow. I should never have lost my temper; I let myself get too thirsty."

"I don't think he's going to want me anymore," I mumbled. "I am definitely too much baggage."

"Renesmee, if that kid doesn't think you're the most amazing thing on two legs then he's an imbecile. It's not your fault your father is just a little...protective. But you know, I would certainly be thrilled if you decided to stay celibate for a while."

"Ugh, Dad, no way!" We started laughing. By the time we reached the house it was dark and everyone was standing in the living room, waiting for us. Alice had a big smile on her face.

"Well?" she said.

"Renesmee has agreed to give St. John's a try until graduation. If she stays for the remaining three years, I've agreed to let her go back to Forks." My mother looked unspeakably relieved.

"Son, we're going to hold you to this," said Carlisle.

"I know," said Edward. "I'm already regretting it."

* * *

Monday came too soon and not soon enough. I still had no idea what I was going to say to Jonathan. Nobody knew what had happened after Edward dragged me home; I hadn't even talked to Jean. I had a terrible feeling in my gut as I got ready. Alice could have checked for me, but she had abided by her promise not to look into my future unless I asked her to. I didn't ask because I didn't want to get dependent on her visions as Edward had, and maybe because I was afraid of what she would see. Rosalie poked her head into my room.

"Wear the black one. It'll make you feel more powerful," she whispered as she pointed to my closet. She had transferred my new bras there sometime over the weekend without my noticing. Or Edward, thank god. I agreed. Over the black bra (wow, it was even more sheer than it had looked in the store) I put a new shirt I didn't remember buying-Alice must have snuck it in. It was a dark-green cotton-silk blend, cut in a loose mid-century style, and it skimmed me gorgeously. I put on black cigarette pants-likewise a mid-century look, although these were brand new and _definitely _designer, they fit me like a glove. I stuck my hair in a ponytail and let Alice do a couple of things to my face with makeup. I looked gamine and lithe. No way would Jonathan dump me when I looked this fuckable. I could do this.

I couldn't do this. Jonathan wasn't waiting for me in the main hall. My self-esteem plummeted. I scanned the crowd of students filtering into school. Edward scanned the crowd too, then disappeared so fast I wondered if someone nearby had a papercut. After a few minutes I saw Jonathan come through the big front doors, looking a little edgy but otherwise fine. I sprinted to him without bothering to make it look human.

"Carlie, where'd you come from?" He looked like he didn't know if he was coming or going. He looked...almost _afraid _of me. Oh no.

"Jonathan, I am _so_, so sorry about Friday. I should have called you this weekend. Can you ever forgive me?"

"What do I have to forgive _you _for?" He smiled and my heart jumped a little. "Your brother just apologized."

Oh. "What'd he say?"

"He said someone was spreading rumors about you and he lost his temper. Carlie, I swear to god I never started any shit, I wouldn't, you asked me not to talk about it and I didn't-"

"Don't worry, Jonathan. I know that. I think some girls from the soccer team might have been a little pissy that an ickle sophomore is dating a hot older soccer star."

"Or they're jealous that you are way cuter than anyone else, ever."

"So we're okay?"

"I think so." Jonathan looked so relieved I couldn't help laughing.

"Who are you more afraid of, Edward or me? I swear I won't go slamming you into any lockers."

"Yeah, that was weird. He's really..."

"Psychotic? Insane? Moody? Stop me if I get close."

"Protective. I can't exactly say I blame him. If anyone said anything nasty about you within my hearing, I might go a little crazy too."

"Wow, promise me you won't. I already have too many protective older brothers. Besides, if you play nice, maybe you'll get to see what I'm wearing right now."

"Huh?" I pressed up against him to give him a goodbye hug, and he felt my nipples through the insubstantial fabric of my shirt. "_Oohhh_."

Bella had been right to be so optimistic.


	5. Activities of Two Hormonal Teenagers

**Thanks for reading! In case anyone is wondering, the story is actually (almost) completely written, and it is fairly long because my major aim in writing it was to explore the idea of an unlimited lifetime. I initially meant for it to span a century, but realized that I am not NEARLY smart enough to figure out what the world will look like in a century, plus I don't think it would really take that long for certain events to transpire, as they will in the story.**

**A secondary aim was to figure out just what the imprint would feel and look like for Jacob and Nessie: as one astute writer (audreyii_fic) noted, one of the inherently creepy things about an adult imprinting on a child is that Nature has a very different definition of maturity than, say, cultural or legal definitions of maturity. This story is my attempt to figure out a way for this thing to happen organically, if it happens at all ;) Feel free to review or PM me with any questions or concerns, I could talk about this crap all day long.**

* * *

The story of Edward Cullen slamming Jonathan Forth into a locker after school was well talked-over throughout the next weeks. I had such sharp hearing that I knew all the rumors, even though people tended to shut up when I got close. People said he'd done it because Jonathan got me pregnant, or gave me an STD, or smacked me around. People said he'd done it because I told him to, to get back at Jonathan for cheating on me, or not being as much of a sex fiend as I was, or a hundred other things. It was almost funny; no matter how wild the rumors got, they couldn't even come close to how ridiculous the truth was. Everyone was impressed that Edward had managed to get the upper hand of Jonathan, since Jonathan was the big athlete with all the visible muscles. People who had seen it were convinced that Edward had just taken Jonathan by surprise by moving freakishly fast, and that if it came to a fair fight he wouldn't stand a chance. Other people said Jonathan just didn't fight back because he didn't want to injure my brother and possibly offend me. It was all very melodramatic. By midterms it had pretty much been forgotten.

Jonathan came over to the house for dinner several times. We watched movies in the den and then ran around in the dark outside to let off some steam. One night Jonathan, Jean and I got mildly baked and came home to watch _Look Who's Talking _with Alice. Alice, of course, could smell the weed on us, but my parents and "grandparents" were gone to hunt and I knew she wouldn't tell. She just looked at us wistfully and I could tell she was wondering what it would be like to be a human teenager, using low level mind-altering drugs. Mostly, we just giggled a lot and struggled to remember what was going on, but it was still a nice break from the norm.

"D'you ever read _Go Ask Alice_?" Jean asked. Alice shrugged.

Jonathan turned to me suddenly. "I bet you were a cute baby."

"Oh, she was the cutest!" Alice enthused. "Everyone fawned all over her, you would think she was the Second Coming."

"You remember that?" said Jean.

Alice laughed disarmingly. "Of course not, I was only a toddler! But I've heard the stories. And we have pictures. She was really adorable."

"Pictures?" Jonathan's ears perked.

"Oh, come on guys. No one cares about the pictures, Alice." I glared at her warningly.

"Don't be silly!" she said with that tinkling laugh, and danced out of the room. She was back in a moment with a heavy leather photo album, hand-embossed by Esme. Jonathan and Jean gathered around her. I was a little too high to be really embarrassed, but it did all seem very goofy to me. Like a sitcom.

Jonathan and Jean oohed and aahed over my baby pictures. Someone had taken out all the pictures that revealed my hyper-growth. There were no pictures that featured my family's faces, although there were a few where Bella's face was turned away or cropped off by the camera and she could pass for someone else. We had proper family photos somewhere, ones with all of us together, but of course we couldn't show those to people who believed Bella to be two years older than me. Most of the photos that had made it into this album were from my time on the rez. Me bouncing on Seth's knee. Swinging with Claire. Toddling around after Emily. Being thrown up in the air by Leah. There was even a picture of me with Jacob-I couldn't believe Edward had allowed it to stay. I hadn't looked through these pictures in so long I'd forgotten it was there, but it had a strong and immediate effect on me. I was a baby, perhaps a couple of weeks old but able to sit up already. My head was fuzzy, the hair brushed up into a poky mohawk. Jacob had brought me close, was planting an exuberant kiss on my cheek. You couldn't see much of his face because I was blocking it, but love and joy radiated from him. His almond-shaped, black eyes were squinted almost shut.

I remembered it exactly: I had been biting him all day, fascinated by the drops of blood that welled up and the little tooth-shaped cuts that healed so quickly. Finally Jacob joked in that special voice he used just for me that he was going to start taking bites too. I shrieked and giggled and writhed, and Jacob began to play-nibble on my plump cheeks.

"_Nom, nom, nom!_" he had shouted. "_Tastes like squirrel!_" In that moment of perfect, blissful connection, Rosalie had snapped the picture. My eyes had darted to the source of the sound in the nanosecond before the flash went off, so the camera took the full force of my delight, pure and concentrated.

"Wow," remarked Jean. "You were a happy baby."

* * *

Late in December Jonathan brought me to his house to meet his mom. She was very smart and laid-back, and made really good steaks-Jonathan had explained to her that barely-cooked red meat was my favorite food. I would have had it for dessert if I could. Jonathan found this endlessly weird but considered it one of my quirks. We spent the evening talking about my family. Ms. Saito was a big fan of Dr. Cullen. She told me all about her work at MU. The evening was almost completely painless. The only unpleasant moment came when I went to the bathroom before Jonathan drove me home. Ms. Saito couldn't possibly have known I could hear her-no human could have-and so she was very frank with her son.

"Johnny, she seems very nice, but are you sure you want to get so serious? She's very young. How old did you say?"

"Fifteen, that's not that young."

"It's young for how you were looking at her."

"Ugh, Mom, we're just dating."

"No you're not. You were 'just dating' Sara Cooper. Carlie, though-you look at her like you've got her on a pedestal. She's only human, Johnny. Please be careful. I don't want to see you get hurt."

"Yeah, Mom. Can we maybe _not _talk about this?" I flushed and washed my hands loudly, my heart pounding. Ms. Saito was right. Jonathan should run and save himself.

* * *

When the weather warmed up in spring, Jonathan and I started going to the lake more often. Sometimes there were tourists, sometimes not. When we had the lake to ourselves we would swim in our undies just like we had the first time. It was getting harder and harder-and _harder_-for us to ignore how much we wanted to do the sex. I was going to get a rash from dry-humping if we didn't do something about this soon. So on a day when the sun was out but no tourists were anywhere to be seen, I didn't get dressed while Jonathan tied up the boat. He turned around and saw me standing on the rocky beach, staring at him defiantly, with every wet, goose-bumpy feature of my body showing through my skin-colored bra and panties.

This was so going to happen.

Jonathan closed the space between us in .065 seconds and started kissing me raggedly. I moaned a little and squeezed his arms as hard as I could around the bicep. Nothing on Jacob, of course-no. I wouldn't think about Jacob right now. Jonathan. Jonathan was here and he was kissing me and it felt _delightful_.

"You smell so good, Carlie. You smell like..."

"Lake water?"

"God, no. Flowers. And...grass, and sunshine, and..." He broke off then because I was smoothing my hands lower and lower over his stomach. He didn't stand a chance of hiding his erection. No amount of fidgeting was going to make his pants smooth. I didn't touch him lower than his belt-buckle, though, just grabbed it and pulled his crotch closer to mine, folded my entire body up under his. He was at least ten inches shorter than Jacob but still taller than me-no, no, not Jacob, please don't think of Jacob... To relieve my feelings, I sank my teeth into his shoulder. Not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough to make him cry out,

"_Jesus_, Carlie, what _are _you?" Then he was back to sliding his hands up and down my sides, breathing hard into my hair, pushing his fingers oh-so-gently under the wire of my bra. I arched a little to give him permission, and he shoved the cups up over my breasts and dove down to envelope one perked-up nipple in his mouth, then the other. His tongue was so warm and slippery it made _me _warm and slippery, and as far as I could tell he was having the time of his life.

I tangled my hands in his hair and tugged the rubber band out. I could tell it hurt a little-his hair was still quite damp and the rubber band stuck-but he didn't seem to mind. His hair was so soft, so shiny...

"I wanted to run my fingers through your hair for so long and now I get to."

"Really?" Jonathan looked up from my right breast, and he seemed pleased. "Did you really want that, Carlie?"

"Mm-hmm..."

"It's funny, I...I sort of knew about you, before we got together, but I thought you were just some kid-"

"Thanks." I yanked on his hair, to make him laugh.

"But then, at rugby you were so athletic and, I don't know, funny and beautiful and you just seemed like sort of an animal, some kind of beautiful graceful animal...did you take ballet?"

"Hell, no!"

"Well I mean, you just seem like you might have, and you're so small but you throw down seniors three times your size like it's nothing-" Oh dear. I hoped he wasn't about to wrap up this panegyric with an accusation of supernatural influences, especially since I couldn't be sure I hadn't ensnared him with my vampiric allure.

"I just...god, are they all like that in Forks?"

"I played on the rez when I was little and I guess none of the older guys took it easy on me, so I learned to be kind of scrappy. I was outside a lot. I used to go cliff-diving and stuff. I'm just not that scared of anything."

"Well, to be honest, I'm a little scared of you." But he was smiling and biting his lip, and I knew he didn't mean it _much_.

"You should be." Then _I_was smiling and biting his lip, and he was breathing hard again and my bra came totally off and we were just two unbelievably horny teenagers about to get it on in the woods, no supernatural stuff involved. Jonathan leaned me against a handy tree and knelt in front of me. He took several steadying breaths, and when I just looked at him with my big dilated eyes and my lips a little parted, he went for it.

Button first. He fumbled a little because his hands were shaking, but I didn't offer to help. I wanted to watch. Then there was a hook to get past-I could practically hear Jonathan's impatience with this hook, like it was sent to earth specifically to keep him from getting in my pants-and then the zipper. He paused-_why are you pausing, Jonathan? WHY?_-and looked up again.

"Carlie, I...are you sure this is okay?" he asked me anxiously. I nodded at him solemnly. "It's just, oh god, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I haven't really done a lot of this before, I mean I have, kind of, but it was different, you're different, you deserve...oh my god, I'm babbling..."

I laughed. "It's okay, Jonathan, I haven't done this either. I've thought about it, but I haven't done it. If you're not okay with it...we don't have to. We haven't even been together that long. We can take it slow if you want to." He looked horrified.

"Oh. Do you want to take it slow? I can do that, if you want...do you want?"

"Not especially, no," I said dryly. "I'm thinking if you don't finish taking off my pants soon I am likely to get violent. But I wanted to give you the option. Besides, we don't have to-" I thought of the box of condoms all the way at home in my nightstand, and of no use to me now. Ugh. We would have to take it slow whether we wanted to or not. "I mean, there's plenty we can do and still pretend we're virgins. Or whatever it is you are."

"Oh, thank _god_. Thankyouthankyouthankyouthan kyouthankyou... Yes. Let's do that. Plenty." He laid his shirt, my shirt and my sweater on the ground with a speed that would have impressed a vampire, then resumed his contemplation of my pants. Now that he came to the big moment, he actually seemed shy. If he backed out now I was going to lose it. I nudged my pants down over my hips and stepped out of them. Jonathan was having trouble breathing, so I worked my fingers into his hair again and gently pressed his nose to the crotch of my underwear. They were still kind of damp from the lake, but they were _soaked _from me. Jonathan breathed so deeply he almost burst a lung. He finally got the nerve up to stick out the tip of his tongue and taste where my wetness had saturated the fabric. His hair almost stood on end at that, and suddenly all shyness was gone. He yanked my underwear down and pulled me onto the makeshift bed he'd set up.

He undid his pants to let his dick get some air and dug his fingers through the fine triangle of hair that I kept trim, bringing his mouth to the space beneath it. He licked out experimentally and I felt a muscle flicker between my legs. I spread them to give him better access and he took that as an invitation to slide one finger delicately down from my clit to my asshole, back up to where I was wettest, then inside me. I let out a yelp. Jonathan looked scared again and pulled away.

"I'm so sorry, are you okay?"

"Yes," I gasped. "It's okay, go ahead." This time he slid two fingers inside me. I was plenty damp but it still felt kind of weird, sort of pinching-but the whole thing was so novel I was into it anyway. I didn't really know what to expect. I knew how to get myself off, but Jonathan didn't. I tried to be helpful and give him directions, but that just slowed down the action. Eventually, when the pressure of his tongue and fingers got too strong and I felt myself in danger of peeing on his face, I started to make what I deemed sexy noises and pulled him up for a kiss. I didn't want him to feel bad about not getting me off-he obviously wanted to-but it wasn't going to happen right now.

I helped him with his pants and his underwear and then there he was, out in the open, hard as a maypole. He looked nervous again, although nerves were not having a noticeable effect on his erection. I gave him a dangerous grin and then knelt over him. The sun and the trees had us splattered with shadows and my hair had dried in JBF fashion. I bent down and let it graze against his stomach and his thighs and his dick, and he sucked in his breath sharply. Then I licked the tip with a tiny bit of pressure, and I grabbed him around the base and squeezed, and got the whole thing wet with my tongue. It tasted...like lake water, if I was being honest. I had never given a blow job before, or a handjob, or any kind of job, but I had seen enough DIY porn to know what to do. Jonathan was shaking hard by this point, and the end of his dick had turned purple, so I just pressed my lips slowly around the tip and and slid my whole head down a couple of inches, and he came spasmodically in my mouth, his whole lower half bucking like crazy. I kept my mouth on him till the come stopped coming, then I sucked it all down with a grimace. Ugh. That shit tasted like battery acid.

Jonathan's eyes were glazed over and I worried for a second that he was dead, but then he breathed and so I just collapsed on top of him and licked the inside of his lips with my still-come-y tongue.

"Doesn't semen taste the _worst_?" I asked him brightly. He didn't seem to have heard. I showed all my teeth in a grin. This was so awesome. He was like wet clay, melting beneath my hands. "Can you move at all?"

His voice seemed to come from far away. "I think so? Let me try." He wiggled his toes and then his fingers, and then with a great effort he sat upright. I perched on his lap, my very wet vagina inches away from his slowly-wilting penis, and gave him a massive, chest-to-chest hug.

"That was so awesome!" I exclaimed. "I'm hungry! Can we please have food?"

"Yeah...yeah. Food. Food is a good idea. I may pass out before we can get to food, though. If I run us off the road will you make sure they put "Mouth-Fucked to Death By Dream Girl" on my tombstone?"

"Kay." His eyes still had that glassy look, and he seemed less coordinated than usual, but he was already starting to get hard again. Man, teenage boys were _so _great. "Not yet!" I scolded his dick. "Food first!"

We managed to scramble into our clothes, then back to his car. His coloring was returning to normal and his pulse was now only twice its normal rate. He was guilty of speeding a little to get to a diner down the road, but I didn't mind, I was hungry enough to eat the anus out of a boa constrictor, and said so.

"One boa constrictor!" I said to the waitress who served us. Jonathan choked on a laugh.

"No boa constrictor here, sorry." This waitress was the most bored waitress in the history of food service.

"In that case, please bring me a large quantity of barely cooked red meat, a basket of french fries and several pickles. The gentleman will have a cheeseburger and a small coke. Pickles for you, Jonathan?" Jonathan shook his head no. He couldn't trust himself to speak.

"Comin' right up."

"From the sound of dear Aileen's dear voice," I said quietly, "I would have to say that if one dried her out and rolled her up, she would make a very dear substitute for a cigarette."

"A large cigarette."

"No no, sweet one, let us not be sizist. My god I hope that food gets here soon. I was starving even before you went down on me. All my remaining stores of energy went into sucking your cock. I am tapped." Jonathan was laughing too much to answer.

* * *

In May of that year rugby got way more intense. There were two reasons for this. The first reason was that the weather was turning really summery and everyone wanted to be outside more. The second was the information that my parents, Alice, Jasper, Esme and Carlisle were going for a weekend hunting trip at the end of the month. They were leaving Rosalie and Emmett behind to keep an eye on me, and Rosalie made it clear that she didn't precisely plan on watching me like a hawk. In fact, she and Emmett wouldn't mind taking a few long walks on the beach. When I told this to Jonathan, his jaw actually dropped. I could feel the heat radiating from his groin.

"So you'll find a reason not to be at home for a while, yeah?"

"Yes," he said fervently. "Yes, yes, yes."

The ensuing sexual tension made rugby almost unendurable for the rest of the team. Nobody could keep up with me. I stopped holding back as much. I knew I was being foolish, I was just so eager to finally get laid. We had come very, very close so many times, since going down on each other at the lake, but now we knew it was really going to happen. The end of March took forever to come.

But come it did. Edward was giving me funny looks as he and my mother headed out the door. He had to have some idea what I was planning, but he didn't try to prevent me. I guess he thought Rosalie would keep me from coming to any real harm, and ever since our talk he had tried hard not to interfere.

The house was spotless. I didn't bother to clean; vampires don't generate much dirt, and Esme cleaned up after me so effectively that if a hair fell out of my head it never made it to the floor. I did wash my sheets though. I thought about going full candles-and-music, but it didn't seem right. I ate an entire side of beef, dripping with blood, to calm my nerves. It helped. If I had been human I would have been stuck with a food baby, but my metabolism was very fast and very efficient. I was actually hungry again by the time Jonathan rang the doorbell.

We barely made it to the bedroom. If this had still been a hotel my room would have cost a firstborn child to reserve. Jonathan took a moment on the balcony to be impressed. Then he turned around and saw that I had shimmied out of my pants and shirt and was holding a fistful of condoms.

"I like this view better," he said reverently. Jonathan seemed almost shy, although he had seen me naked tons of times. He sat me on the edge of my bed and spread my legs a little. I leaned back and felt the first electric little flick of his tongue. It felt so good, I didn't even care if we went all the way, I just wanted him to keep doing this. I started running my hands up and down my body, digging my sharp nails into my flesh so I left white marks that turned red. He was sucking on my clit through the thin, wet fabric of my black underwear, running his fingers under the panties, teasing me and himself. Quickly he yanked them down and off, threw them to the floor. He was out of his pants and shirt in a second, and then he was licking religiously at my slit, digging in two fingers, then three, hooking them _up _the way I liked. I kept touching myself all over, feeling my breasts through the sheer fabric of my bra, raking my stomach and ribs until they were striped with nail-marks. Jonathan was easing a fourth finger inside me and it felt a little uncomfortably tight, but I knew why he was doing it and even the pain was turning me on. He licked faster, sucked harder, and with a burst I came screaming.

Before the shock waves had finished rolling through me Jonathan climbed onto the bed and positioned himself between my thighs. He rolled a condom on and looked into my face for confirmation.

"Do it, come on, let's do this," and he plunged himself in to the hilt. I started moaning again. This hurt, but the pain was good, the pain was incredible, I never wanted it to stop.

"Are you okay?" he asked tensely. I could see him holding on, but just barely. I reached up and licked my fingers slowly, then reached down and started rubbing myself just above where we were joined.

That was almost too much for him. "Oh my god, Carlie, you're so gorgeous, you're unbelievable, you're unreal..." his words trailed off into incoherencies as he got closer and closer. He was pushing himself in as deep as he would go, pulling out with a sucking sound until just the tip of his cock was touching me, then back in. I gasped and rubbed harder. He was reaching places that I hadn't even known I wanted reached. His movements became faster and more erratic as he lost control.

"Carlie, I can't hold out much longer, I have to-"

"You don't have to hold out, this is good, this is-ooohhhh, ohmygod, ooohhhh OHHHHHHH FUUCK-" I came a second time with a great deal of swearing, and he followed me a moment later. We both turned instantly to jelly. He collapsed on top of me and mumbled,

"Let me know if I'm crushing you." As if he could possibly hurt me.

After several minutes, or possibly hours, I was calm enough to suggest that we go eat a whole cow. Jonathan agreed heartily. He asked me if I felt sore at all.

"Kind of, but in a good way." Jonathan looked guilty, but I didn't let him feel that way for long. "No, I liked it. I mean, I _really _liked it. I'm going to be sorry when it's not a little painful anymore. You know what I mean?" He didn't, but what did it matter? I was getting _ideas_, and told him so.

"Ideas?" He swallowed.

"Yes," I said. "But first cow."

* * *

By the time Rosalie and Emmett returned there was a highly visible change in Jonathan. He looked, as I pointed out mercilessly to him, like a boy who had just had his cherry popped.

When Emmett saw him he burst out laughing. Rosalie said, "Oh, dear. Emmett, you'd better get him out of here. Go give him the facts of life. I have to talk to Nessie." Emmett waited discreetly while Jonathan kissed me goodbye, then offered to come take a look at Jonathan's car.

"So?" Rosalie asked when they were gone. "Did you use a condom?"

"Um, duh, Rosie. Five, actually."

"All at once?"

"No, one at a time."

"Huh. Not bad. I must give props to the kid. Emmett and I were only gone three hours and I notice you got through about twenty pounds of meat besides. Was everything...okay?"

"Yeah. Sex is awesome. I begin to understand why you and Emmett retire at eight o'clock every night."

Rosalie snickered. "Yeah, it is pretty great." She turned all-business. "Now, I'm sure you understand that I can't leave you guys alone again. I'm not running a bordello here, and if Edward thinks I'm pimping you out his head will probably explode, followed by mine and then Jonathan's. But I did want you to have a roof over your head for the first time. Well...kind of first."

I blushed. "Do you _all _know about that?"

"We're not stupid, darling. Although I do feel Edward might try to be a tad more understanding, given that he's still a libidinous seventeen-year-old himself."

"Yeah, the same way I'm five."

Emmett came back in and gave Rosalie the thumbs-up.

"How'd it go? Did you put the fear of God into him?"

"Nah," said Emmett. "We just talked about cars and then I told him to be nice to my little sister."

"Like I said," remarked Rosalie. "Fear of God."

* * *

Dear Jake,

I miss you so much. Every time I think I'm handling it a new lot of memories hits me and I realize I will never be able to handle being apart from you. I hope you're happy, but not too happy.

Love  
Nessie

P.S. I got all A's on my finals. Now I have all summer to forget everything.

* * *

Jonathan and I spent the summer cliff-diving, swimming and sailing on the lake, although since it was tourist season it wasn't _nearly _as exciting as before. A lot of the rugby guys got together for pick-ups over the summer too, and they very flatteringly requested that I join them.

Jasper's old friends Peter and Charlotte came to visit, too. It was a short visit because they had to fit it in between feedings. I called them "Aunt" and "Uncle", as I had since I first met them in infancy. I showed Charlotte around my room, showed her my book collection and then tried on every vintage outfit in my closet for her amusement. She clapped and hooted at me, reminisced at length about all the music she'd listened to when my clothes were new. So I put old records on my Victrola and we danced to _Revolver _and _Rubber Soul_. She had better taste in music than my father, I thought.

* * *

Dear Jake,

Summer vacation over. School started last week. Two years to go. Counting the minutes. Please don't forget about me. Mom says hi.

Love  
Nessie


	6. Further Embroilment

**I imagine it's frustrating to read what is meant to be a Jacob/Nessie story and have practically no Jacob, and instead some random hot aboriginal-looking understudy, while Nessie blunders along in a blind haze of emotional confusion and hormones. Don't get me wrong, I would totally date Jonathan, but he's no Jake. But don't worry! Jake is coming back soon, and then some more things will happen! :} As always, reviews float my sloop.**

* * *

When Alice disappeared for three days early in the next September, I gave her a postcard to give to Jacob, and begged her to dig up news on the Pack and Emily and Claire and all the Rez happenings. As usual, they brought Charlie with them. He gave me a big hug and asked nervously if I ever planned on slowing down this growth spurt.

"I'm pretty sure it's slowing down already. Maybe I'll be stuck as a nineteen-year-old forever, like Mom."

"Psh," sniffed Charlie. "Why she had to go and pick the dumbest age to get stuck as, I'll never know. Not that your mom is dumb, mind you-"

"I promise I won't tell her you said that," I joked. Although I agreed with him.

"-But she sure is nineteen." He glanced over at where she was hanging off of Edward's arm and rolled his eyes.

"Well, I'm only six, so I guess I still have that to look forward to." Charlie looked momentarily apologetic.

"Oh, don't mind me, Nessie, I don't mean anything by it. I'm just a grouchy old man. Your mom had a tough childhood in some ways, with Renee flaking out every other day, not to mention the way Edward jerked her around back then. But she always got everything she wanted without even having to try. All she had to do was pout that little mouth o' hers and some boy would be at her side, waiting to give her whatever her heart desired. Your grandma used to call Bella her 'thirty-year-old child,' but Renee was such a child herself she wouldn'a recognized real maturity if it came with a label. She overestimated Bella's maturity and it did them both more harm than good. Knowing how to cook and pay bills does not a grown-up make. Don't get me wrong, I love her more'n my life, but I'll always wonder if I did right by her." He squinted at me. "Not you, though. I can tell Edward doesn't give you everything you want."

"He couldn't even if he wanted to," I said. "How...how's Jacob?" My face twisted into an ugly shape with the effort of sounding casual.

"Oh, he's doing good. I still have Sundays at Billy's place, and he hangs around there a lot still. He's doing great in school-"

"School? Really? I didn't know that..."

"Well, he's taking online classes and some stuff up at U-Dub. That boy's smart as a whip. He wants to get his bachelor's in three years instead of four, and the smart money says he does it. Nessie, how come he hasn't told you all this himself?"

"Edward doesn't think I'm safe around werewolves right now." Charlie looked skeptical and I went on, "You know about Alice's gift?" He nodded. "Well, it's a confusing and illogical power. It's never seemed to work around werewolves, they have some defense against it. Jake has always been my best friend, so she could never really pick up any visions of me, just bits and pieces, but before we left she got a real bad one. It was just a glimpse that leaked through...anyway, Edward thought it would be best if my future weren't so tied up in Jake for a while, so Alice would be able to see if anything was coming. I write to him sometimes, but he can't even know where we are or else it sets Alice's visions on the fritz again."

Of course, since Alice had finally agreed to butt out of my future, this explanation held less than no water. Still, explaining to my grandpa that the real reason for leaving Forks was Edward's crippling fear of his daughter's impending adolescence wouldn't solve anything. He didn't even know about the imprint. So we stuck to the story we'd used on Jacob, and no one ever questioned it: if there was one thing everyone could be sure of, it was that Edward was an overbearing parent with indiscriminate faith in Alice's shaky and unreliable predictions. He was exactly the kind of person who would do what we were telling everyone he'd done.

"She hasn't even seen the bad thing since then but they're all being so godawful cautious. I hate it." I kicked sullenly at the dirt for a while. Charlie was at a loss for what to say, so he just awkwardly patted my shoulder.

"He sends me birthday presents," I said. I hadn't told anyone this-even Alice didn't know what was in those bumpy little packages she brought me. "He carved me a wooden greyhound my first year here and a clay rabbit the year after that."

"That boy's got a lot of skill in his hands." _I bet he does_, I thought longingly.

"Edward says I can go back after I graduate, if nothing happens before then."

"That'll be good."

"Yeah." There was one thing I really wanted to know about Jacob, and Charlie wasn't the sort to think it was important enough to tell: did he have a girlfriend? I knew he hadn't viewed me as a sexual object before we left, which made sense, I couldn't blame him for that. And I had a boyfriend, although poor Jonathan was little more than a stand-in for Jacob. But still... We watched the waves break down in the cove for a while, our minds far away.

Jonathan and Jean and various athlete friends came to my birthday party. They all brought presents. I begged my family not to give me anything too showy in front of my friends from school, but their idea of "not too showy" was laughable.

Emmett and Rosalie got me skiing equipment and a ski trip. "We'll go this winter," she promised.

Carlisle and Esme gave me a Volkswagon Phaeton, hand-assembled at the GläserneManufaktur in Dresden. Carlisle warned me sternly it was "Just to learn on. Don't even think about taking it out for a joy ride without an adult." My friends all gasped and oohed and ahhed, and I could feel my face veering wildly between annoyance that they gave me such an expensive car in front of all my friends, and delight at said expensive car.

Edward gave me a cell phone. It was the first time I'd ever had one, and I felt like he was giving me an inch of independence-although it was evident by the smug look on Rosalie's face, and the grim one on Edward's, that the phone had not been his idea.

As soon as I could, I made my excuses and flew up the stairs to my room. Jacob's package held another small sculpture. It was a starling balancing on a branch, cunningly carved from a single piece of pine. Its wings were spread to fly but the tips had been clipped. It would never leave its perch. All the air went out of me and I thought inescapably of Jacob. He couldn't send me letters but he could tell me how much he missed me in one small piece of wood.

I heard Jonathan coming up the stairs and hid the starling before he could see it. I sprang silently to my dressing table-a gift this year from Alice, golden Art Deco wood drawers fully stocked with cut-glass bottles and jars of makeup I would never be able to get through, but which I liked to play around with. I pretended to be fully occupied with the application of an orangey-coral lipstick when Jonathan poked his head in. I turned and gave him a dazzling, if somewhat insincere smile.

"You like?"

"You look amazing."

"Want me to mark you up?" I asked mischievously. I didn't want to let Jonathan see how upset I really was, because he would be dear and sympathetic and comforting, which would make me come apart at the seams. If I fell apart now I would fall apart _hard_.

Jonathan gulped. He looked so nervous I caught some of his anxiety.

"I wanted to give you your presents in private," he said quietly. Oh, lord. He was feeling chock full of emotion right now. Why couldn't he be lighthearted and silly? I didn't know if I could stomach all this..._feeling_.

He held out a wrapped package to me. I accepted it and tore off the paper and, against all expectations, let out an actual gasp of surprise and pleasure. It was a first-printing copy of my favorite book, _The Blue Castle_, signed on the frontispiece in curly, faded fountain-pen script: _To Joanie, with love, Aunt June, March 1927. Many dreams to come_. I had been reading a tacky paperback copy for ages, and it was falling to bits. If I had ever mentioned it to my family, they would have bought me a nice copy, hand-lettered by monks in France and signed by the author, but there was a lot I didn't mention to them these days. Edward stayed out of my thoughts more and more-or, hopefully, I was getting better at blocking them. Perhaps I was developing whatever quality my mother had had when she was a teenager, before she voluntarily learned to expose her every thought to her domineering husband like a frog on the autopsy table. And Alice was true to her word and left my future alone.

Jonathan gave me a few minutes to gush about how perfect it was and said,

"I found it in a bookstore near the village and I knew it was for you. And don't forget, I said 'presents.' There's something else." I looked at him expectantly, and he pulled me close, laid my head against his shoulder, and whispered into my ear, "I love you, Carlie. I'm in love with you."

It was the first time he'd said those words to me, which was in itself surprising, since we had by now been together for almost a year. My ache over Jacob, combined with the unbearable tenderness with which Jonathan had said the words, combined with my own undeniable but complicated love and dependence on him, melted every joint in my body. I started to shiver a little and tears trickled hotly from the corners of my eyes. I'd have been lost without him. He was a mere shadow of my Jacob, but a shadow was all I had.

"I love you too, Jonathan," I whispered.

* * *

Another year. Jonathan went to the same university where his mom taught, and we didn't even talk about breaking up when he graduated. Jonathan was good for me: he was chronically cheerful and his optimism kept me afloat. If not for his desire to talk about everything that came to mind, I would have spent a lot of time stewing. I was good for him, too. My spontaneity offset his pragmatism and leveled off his anxiety. I wished that I had been born without ties to the supernatural. I despised the imprint. I couldn't wave it away or ignore it, because it was very real, but I resented its hold over me. The longer I knew Jonathan, the more I felt that he was perfect for me and I was perfect for him. We fought sometimes, as all couples do, but we even fought well, exploding into irrational yelling sprees only briefly and in private, both eager to do the best we could by each other. I loved Jonathan. I was in love with him. But my love for him was tainted by the steel tether that tied me to Jacob. There wasn't room for them both. If the imprint had let me, I would have learned to hate Jacob, but it wouldn't, so I had to hate Edward and Bella and wolf-magic and myself.

And Jonathan was so adept at diffusing self-loathing, even when he didn't know its cause. He was so perfect for me I even hated him a little, too.

For my seventh-slash-eighteenth birthday Jonathan gave me a thin gold bangle shaped like a snake swallowing its tail. It looked smashing with the clothes Alice had given me. It was a thoughtful gift and I kissed him heartily in thanks. But my mind had already darted upstairs to where a shoddily-wrapped present hid under my pillow. I made an excuse to flee the party for a minute. There was the package, a bit bigger than the greyhound which had stood guard over my bed for three years now. Alice's note read, _He misses you too. I'll give you all the news later_.

Jacob had sent me a little carved redwood box with a fitted lid. On the top, in ingenious relief, stretched a tiny red wolf, and the box was empty. I hunched over the precious object in my hands and tears squeezed out of my eyes to splash on the warm wood. I sat silently, wishing desperately for Jacob to fly to me and laugh me out of my misery. It was in this attitude that Jonathan found me, twenty minutes later. I couldn't even try to hide my sorrow from him. I just stared at the wolf in my hands.

"What's wrong, Carlie?" He rushed to my side and sat with me on the bed. I didn't want him there, couldn't he see I didn't want him? I would never want anyone but Jacob, my Jake.

"Is that from Forks?" Nod. He tried to put his arms around me but my mind was full of Jacob's face and Jacob's hair and Jacob's eyes. I didn't want to be touched, so I stood up quickly. Jonathan looked stricken.

"Can't I help? Carlie, please let me help you. You can tell me anything." He meant it, too. I sniffled and wiped my face on my arm and tried to smile, but it came out a grimace. I had to say something or he would try to touch me again, and I could endure anything but that.

"My best friend from Forks made this. I wish I were there."

"Well, that's not so bad. Maybe you can fly out and see her. Or Skype or something."_Good_. Let him think my imprint was just some girlfriend. He looked uneasy. I hated him. I hated everyone in my family, all loving me and petting me and comforting me, when all I wanted was Jake.

Alice popped her head in. "You guys okay?" she asked with sweet concern in her voice. I nodded.

"Jonathan, I'll be down in a minute." He took the hint and slunk downstairs. Alice glided over to me.

"He misses you. I'm sure you know that...he's trying to be happy, just like you are, but I could tell he's only part of himself with you gone." In a painful wrench the tears came pouring out of me and I leaned into Alice's shoulder. She hugged me so tightly I felt my bones shift. "Oh, honey, it's going to be okay. You'll be together, the time will pass, and when you go back to him you'll both be stronger, there there, honey, this will pass..."

Eventually I quieted enough to let Alice touch up my makeup and return to the party. Everyone started an informal game of soccer out on the flat stretch of land beside the house. It was a relief to be doing something so physical. I even found myself laughing at everyone's jokes. My family got in on the game, although they had trouble holding back. Emmett accidentally kicked the ball two hundred yards away into the ocean, but in the lowering light the humans couldn't see where it went, and everyone just assumed he was an extraordinarily strong human man making a good kick.

I kissed Jonathan goodbye. He still looked hurt. I would have to be extra-nice to him to make it up.

I cried myself to sleep, but I knew I would feel better in the morning. I wasn't made to stay sad for long.

* * *

On weekends I sometimes accompanied Jonathan to his campus to hang out with him and his friends-who all quickly became my friends, too. He drove me back when it got dark, and when we reached home Edward always primly sniffed our breaths to be sure no alcohol had been consumed. On one of these drives, Jonathan chatted exuberantly about an elective he was taking in Greek mythology. It was widely considered a soft option, but the class was taught by a renowned professor and it certainly sounded interesting. Jonathan turned to me suddenly and said,

"Atalanta."

"What?"

"That's who you are. You're Atalanta. Her parents left her on a mountaintop when she was born and she was raised by hunters in the forest. She became the best huntress in all of Greece. When her father tried to marry her off she made a deal that she would only marry whoever could beat her in a footrace." Edward had raised me on classical literature and it was a small leap from there to Greek mythology, which I preferred. For one thing, Greek mythology had more wolves. I knew this story well but I let him tell it to me because I could see he was working around to a point.

"Did anyone ever win a race?"

"Yeah, eventually. Hippomenes. He had supernatural assistance, which if you ask me is cheating, but he still won. Everyone who raced against her and lost was killed, but the men just kept lining up anyway. They would rather be killed trying to get her than live without a hope."

"Charming girl. You're comparing me to her _why_?"

"Well, she was unbelievably athletic, she had freakish speed, and she was irresistibly sexy. And nobody could ever beat her in a footrace."

"A chink in your theory, dear Watson: _you _beat me in a footrace." Jonathan didn't laugh; if anything, he looked a little sad.

"No, I didn't," he said. "I've never beaten you."

"What about that first one, on the beach? Our inaugural race? That was a tie!"

"No, Carlie. You won that one. You were just holding back. Is there...is there a chance I'll ever actually win a race against you?" Oh dear. He was asking me the one thing I'd always hoped he would never ask. The thoughts I had beaten back for so long came snarling at me. _Jacob, Jacob, I love you so much, there will never be anyone for me but you_... Jacob was the only man who could ever beat me in a fair race, and I meant that both literally and metaphorically. Jonathan didn't stand a chance. It had been cruel of me to use my half-vampire wiles against him when I knew he could never mean as much to me as Jacob had since the moment I was born. It was so unfair. All I wanted was to be happy. Jonathan was so wonderful, but Jacob was wonderfuller.

"You know what?" Jonathan said, and he sounded tired and a little angry. "I don't even want to know."

"Jonathan-"

"Is there someone else? Am I just barking up the wrong tree here? I can't stop thinking about you, night and day, and when I'm with you I feel like I can do anything, but you just...Do you feel anything for me at all?"

"How can you say that?" I was near angry-tears but I didn't want to let them out, they would only hurt him. _More wiles_. My mother used to cry to get what she wanted, according to Charlie. "I love you, Jonathan, I want to be with you! What am I doing wrong? Tell me what I did wrong!"

"Oh god, Carlie, I don't even know. Nothing, you haven't done anything wrong. I just look in your eyes and I don't see what I want to see. I'm sorry. I wish I hadn't said anything."

"Jonathan, I'm still in high school, for shit's sake. What do you expect to see?"

"I don't know, Carlie. You're right, but I'm...I have to keep reminding myself not to get jealous, because every time I see a guy check out your ass all I want to do is crack his skull open." Perfect. More protection.

"I can take care of myself, Jonathan," I said coldly.

"I know that, Carlie. I _know_. I wouldn't do that anyway, because I've never been that kind of guy, but you make me feel that way. I'm turning into that kind of guy. It's not just all the messing around we do, it's the little things. I could spend hours watching you curl and uncurl your toes when you're just hanging out, or the way you rub your neck when you're tired... When we're fooling around I get all these images, flashes of pictures in my mind, every time I touch you." Oh no, had I really let that slip? I hoped I hadn't ever shown him Jacob by accident.

"Pictures?"

"Yeah. Like, sunsets over the ocean. Forests. Cliffs. I see my own face sometimes, and it turns into someone else's face, someone I've never even seen." Well, _awesome_.

"So?"

"Carlie, I've never actually seen the sun set over an ocean. The sun rises over every ocean I've ever been to. And the forests...they're redwoods."

"What's wrong with redwoods?"

"Nothing's wrong with redwoods, it's just weird is all. Like, you've described these things so vividly to me that they're starting to become real. I would say I'm just remembering this stuff from a movie or a picture or something, but it's so much more real than that, it's like I'm really there... I just get this weird idea-I know it's crazy, I'm _sorry-_-I get this weird idea that there's someone else. I don't know who it is that my face always turns into when I have these pictures, but it's always the same guy. I'm not saying I think you would go behind my back-"

"Really? Because that is exactly what it sounds like you're saying." I was too panicked to get properly mad. How could I have been so careless as to let him see Jacob? I didn't even know I'd been doing it. "How long have you felt like this?"

"Since the beginning. Since that time at the lake. I always thought it would go away, or at least I thought I was just seeing things but they didn't necessarily mean anything..."

"I don't know what I'm supposed to say to this. I don't see how it can be my fault that you're feeling insecure. I've never fucked around on you and I never would. Who's the guy you see?" I knew I shouldn't ask but it was like an open wound that I couldn't stop licking.

"I don't know. He looks like an Indian and he's gigantic. He looks _specific_, Carlie. He doesn't look like an imaginary friend. He looks _real_." I swallowed. My mouth was too dry.

"You must have seen a picture of some guy, I don't know." I was sounding guilty. _Calm down_, I instructed myself. _He's only human. He doesn't want to believe that you have superpowers. You don't have to defend yourself against something he wasn't even going to accuse you of. Deflect. Deflect!_"Honestly I'm not all that thrilled that you're fantasizing about some gigantic piece of man-meat while we're trying to have fun. Should I be worried?" Jonathan gave me a dirty look, which I deserved for such an obvious workaround.

"God no, Carlie, it's not like that. I'm telling you, these pictures, they are completely un-deliberate. I even try to think about something else but they stay in my mind, it's like I'm watching a movie that I can't turn off. I swear, I'm not trying to sound crazy. Do you at least believe me?"

"I don't know what I believe. You're talking about hallucinations and I kind of feel like you're blaming them on me and I don't really get how it's my fault that you're having...Jonathan, what is this all leading to? Are you trying to break up with me?"

"Not if I can help it," he muttered. "I don't even know if I could."

"Are you jealous of an imaginary guy?"

"Well, when you put it like that I sound like a complete fucking idiot. Yeah, I'm jealous. Plus I really do not want some guy in my head when I am trying to get you off. It is a terrible fucking distraction."

"Well, just remind yourself that he's not real, okay? Sometimes when I'm feeling really stressed I start seeing my mom's face everywhere." My mom's face back when she was human, when I almost killed her being born. I didn't mention this part. "I would go crazy if I saw her during sex. Please, Jonathan, please believe me. You don't have to worry about this. We're young. This is still pretty new. We'll get there, I promise."

"Really?" I smiled and snuggled up next to him. He took one hand off the steering wheel to wrap tightly around my shoulders. I chanced a peek at his face. He already looked happier. Wonderful Jonathan. He was so easy to make happy, so easy to hurt.

"Yeah. Really."


	7. Graduation

**Thanks for reading! Thanks, Man, for beta'ing. And most importantly, thanks Jacob for existing in the first place!**

Graduation was blossoming out of the mythical date it had always seemed and into the very real end of a nearly-finished period of time. There were graduation rehearsals ("Walk, walk, walk, turn, walk, stand still for two hours, done."), and Alice was determined to find me the perfect graduation dress. I would have been happy with anything pretty, but she had some mystical idea of what "perfect" meant in this context and I could do nothing but follow her around and try on whatever she thrust at me. My postcards to Jacob were getting more and more ebullient.

Jacob!

I'm almost done. I graduate on the 27th and I am flying home to you on the 28th. You will hardly recognize me, but you'll know me because I'll be the happiest person on the planet. Tell Seth and the others I said hi! One month! I love you I love you,

I love you!  
Nessie!

I passed all my exams without any trouble. Alice finally decided on a dress that I had to admit was worth all that trouble. It was the requisite white, so pure in its whiteness that it made my skin glow. She had found it at an estate sale somewhere: a genuine silk-knit Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress from the mid-seventies, in pristine condition. It looked like it had never been worn. I had to give it to her, the thing looked stunning on me. It hugged my somewhat minimalistic curves and the scoop-neck was just deep enough to be interesting, not deep enough to look tacky. It had super-wide lapels, one of the aspects of seventies fashion that I particularly adored. Everything that was said of Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dresses was true.

"Just goes to show, money isn't everything," Alice said, crinkling her nose in mirth. "I nabbed this for twenty bucks at an estate sale in Mount Pearl."

"Yeah," I laughed, "After spending thousands of dollars of gas, not to mention the endless man-hours, hunting for it."

"Well, I _am _a natural hunter."

"Alice, I can't imagine anything more perfect. I love it. It's so utterly me. Thank you."

"You know, I really lucked out with you, Nessie," Alice said contemplatively. " I always tried to do this stuff for your mom, but she hated it. She never wanted to wear anything I bought for her, and if she did she was ungracious about it. Not you, though. You've inherited Bella's taste for simple clothes, but you do love looking good."

"And you love making me look good." Alice knew my taste in clothes so well that she could always find something that exactly suited me. She relished hunting through old estate sales, searching for the perfect find-it was certainly more of a challenge than sifting through racks of designer clothes at a mall. It was the one thing Bella hadn't been able to give her and she could finally have her fill.

She had a blast getting me ready the morning of my graduation. The dress had three-quarter sleeves and hit me just above the knees. My well-shaped legs had been (rather painfully) waxed by Alice herself, and I was wearing a pair of simple white ballet flats. Unlike most of the girls at school, I didn't see the point of wearing heels. I was five-eight in my sockfeet and I preferred to be able to run whenever the fancy took me. She did something to make my hair bouncy and shiny. I hadn't cut it since before leaving Forks; my mother loved to play with it and she said I looked prettiest with long hair, so I just let it grow and grow. By now it fell nearly to my tailbone in glinting light-brown waves. Alice had a ridiculous amount of fun doing my makeup, although when she was finished it hardly looked like I was wearing any. My dark brown eyes looked bigger, somehow. My cheeks were very pink from anticipation. I wasn't blind or falsely modest; I knew I was pretty. How could I not be, with my parents? But after Alice was through with me, I looked...well, _vampire_-gorgeous. I certainly didn't look like a preteen anymore. I couldn't wait for Jacob to see me like this. Maybe I'd even wear this dress when I flew back to Forks tomorrow.

When Jonathan saw me his eyes got big and he started fidgeting, which he always did when he was trying to fight an erection. I didn't quite know what to do about him. I would be going back to Forks, and once I got there I knew I could never leave. But I loved Jonathan so much. He was my first non-imprinted love, my first lay, my first lots of things. I just didn't see how I could realistically have both him and Jacob. Maybe we could try the long-distance thing. Maybe I could fake my own death. And here he was, waiting for me in my living room, all starry-eyed and thrilled to be my boyfriend.

But I couldn't even put much energy into worrying about the Jonathan problem. All I could think about was where I would be tomorrow.

* * *

Graduation was a blur. I managed not to mess anything up, but I wouldn't have cared if I fell off the stage in the middle of the ceremony. I just wanted the time to pass.

_Tomorrow_, I thought. Walk, walk. _Tomorrow_. Smile, shake hands. _Tomorrow_. Walk, sit, stand. _Tomorrow_. Throw mortarboard in air. Cheer. Sing school song. Clap. _Tomorrow tomorrowtomorrow_.

After what felt like a decade of this nonsense we were allowed to file out of our seats and mingle in the audience. I felt a satisfying thrumming deep in my bones, the vibration that meant Jacob. I would be seeing him so soon. Tomorrow I'd be in Forks, I'd drive to the rez-

The thrumming grew louder, started to drown out everything else. My heart was pounding like crazy. I looked to where my family was milling around their seats, beaming up at me. They were lucky today had been overcast, since it was an outdoor ceremony. Jonathan stood near them with a beatific smile on his face, waiting for a group of graduates to pass so he could make his way to me.

The thrumming grew deafening. A few yards beyond Jonathan I saw a mountain parting the waves of people. A man with russet skin and a slash of black hair, nigh on seven feet tall, with black eyes that were trained on me like I was the best thing he'd ever seen in his life...

Jacob was _here_. Everybody else ceased at once to exist.

The air took on the consistency of pea soup. My graduation gown was tripping me up, so I wriggled out of it as I ran. My shoes went flying. I was all-out sprinting, the way I wasn't allowed to do around humans, too fast for their eyes to properly follow, and still it took me hours to reach Jacob. Dimly I saw Jonathan hold out his arms to me, but I pushed past them and Jacob broke through a mob of people and suddenly I had launched myself into his arms and wrapped my legs as tightly around his waist as they would go. His hug was crushing the air out of me, his fingers tangling in my hair, his skin smelling like a forest and something wilder, and he was growling into my ear,

"Oh, Nessie, let's never do this again, you're my little girl, love you, love you..."

I was crying and laughing so hard that I was in hysterics. I couldn't breathe, but I didn't need to breathe as long as Jacob was here. Dimly I heard the echoes of Edward's voice, Bella's and Jonathan's, but I didn't know what they were saying and I didn't care at all.

* * *

After a long time in this position-long enough for the crowd around us to disperse almost entirely-Jacob set me carefully down on the grass. I had grown closer to his height, but not much; he was still over a foot taller than me. He looked older than when I'd seen him last. He still looked his age, which was now twenty-three, but he probably wouldn't age much past that if he kept phasing. Which of course he would: Jacob would continue to phase as long as I was alive.

We wouldn't let go of each other. I was freely transmitting images to him through my hands: his carvings, my runaway attempts years ago, our races with Rosalie and Emmett, the first time I saw him and the imprint formed, summertime in Forks, the car we'd built together years ago, my house on the cliffs. He laughed unreservedly to see my memories of great tackles in rugby, and the look on Edward's face when he tried to teach me to drive and found I already knew. We walked slowly back toward my family, his arm crushed around my shoulders and my arm firmly tied around his waist.

Bella glided up to me. "I sent him a plane ticket two days ago. Jacob, I'm so glad you're here!" She embraced him tightly. Edward gravely shook his hand. Emmett thumped him manfully on the back and everyone else gave him a nose-wrinkling hug.

Jonathan was stock-still. He looked like he had just stepped into a waking nightmare. I was too happy even to try to look penitent. If my smile grew any wider I would need stitches.

"What're _you _doing here?" he asked hoarsely.

Jacob held out the hand that wasn't clutching me.

"I'm Jacob. Are you a friend of Nessie's?" His voice was so good, velvety and animal. Jonathan stared at Jacob's massive paw in disbelief and didn't move a muscle.

"_Nessie_?" he asked me.

"That's what Jacob calls me," I said gently. "Jake, this is Jonathan." Tense betrayal steamed out of Jonathan's pores. As one, the vampires all pretended to be deep in conversation with each other and turned away. Poor Jonathan. I could see now that a long-distance relationship would never have worked. Now that Jacob was in my physical presence again, there was no comparison. Jacob's heat boiled through me from wherever our skin made contact. He was all that was warm and good in this world. Jonathan had shrunk to a complete non-entity. I never should have involved him in this. I loved him-no imprint could undo _that_-but my love for him was as a drop in a bucket compared to the tidal joy I felt now that Jacob was here.

"You were supposed to be imaginary," he said stupidly to Jacob.

"Sorry?" Even through his confusion, Jacob had laughter wrinkling around the edges of his eyes.

"I've been seeing your face for three years, but I thought you weren't real...you told me he wasn't real, Carlie, _you told me there was no one else_-"

Comprehension dawned on Jacob's face. His brows went up.

"You've been showing him my face?"

"Not on purpose, I just...couldn't stop thinking about you. Sometimes when we touched he saw you by accident."

"What are you talking about?" Jonathan said in a panic. "What are you saying? I don't understand..."

"Jonathan, Jacob was my...my best friend back in Forks. I haven't seen him in four years."

Gears clicked in Jonathan's freaked-out brain.

"He made you the animals. And he's the one in the picture, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"But...he can't be."

"What picture?" Jake asked.

"From when I was a baby. You were holding me. Rosalie took it over your shoulder."

Jonathan's head was practically spinning. "That can't be him though, the guy in the picture was already a teenager, it can't have been him, he's not old enough-"

"Ness, is this your boyfriend?" Jacob said it like it was impossible, which, now that I thought about it, it was.

Jonathan's eyes swung wildly from Jake to me and back again.

"Um, yes. I guess so." Jacob's hand twitched on my shoulder and I felt rather than heard a low rumble in his chest.

"You _guess _so? We've been dating for three years! You _guess _so?"

"Jonathan-"

"Do you mind peeling yourself off my girlfriend so we can talk?" Jonathan snapped at Jacob, who was now very comfortably cradling my upper arm

"Yeah, actually." Jacob's eyes were narrowed. I sighed.

"Jake, I'd better go. I'll be right back, okay?" He didn't want to let me go but we disentangled ourselves painfully from each other. Jacob gave a small grunt as I left his side. My insides seemed to drain out as I moved away from him. Every instinct told me never to stop touching him, never to walk away. But I owed Jonathan so much. I certainly owed him a chance to yell at me away from his rival.

"I'm going to have to fight him, aren't I?" Jonathan asked miserably as soon as we were out of earshot. I blinked. That wasn't what I expected to hear.

"You want to... fight _Jacob_?" I didn't mean to be insulting but one eyebrow shot straight up to my hairline. "I don't think that's going to work."

"Carlie, how could you not tell me about him?"

"We weren't together. I never even called him. I haven't heard his voice in over four years. What was there to tell?"

"You obviously _were _together. I wish I'd known." Jonathan ran his fingers through his hair, a nervous habit that left it a mess. "He's the reason you never... Did you ever even want to be with me?"

"Jonathan, Jake and I-we've been best friends since I was born." Before that, actually. "When my family moved out here, I wanted to give it a try, I wanted to be happy and you made me happy."

"I don't believe you."

"It's true."

"You're in love with him."

"I don't know. Maybe," I said sadly. "I can't tell what's going on in my head right now. I really did want to make this work, Jonathan. I love _you_, too."

"He's in love with you."

"No, he's not. I wanted him to be, but he just doesn't see me that way."

"I wonder what that feels like?" Rejection made him bitter.

"Jonathan-"

"So where does that leave me? Dumped at your graduation?"

"Please, Jonathan...you were my best friend in St. John's. You made this bearable. I'll never forget that." He caught the past tense and narrowed his eyes to mere slits.

"Oh, thanks. I'm so glad I could make your life _bearable_. I'm so glad you had someone to fuck when you got horny and to play with when you got bored. I'm so glad I could be a pit-stop on your way back to the incredible hulk."

"Don't say that about Jacob. Don't you _dare _blame him-"

"Oh, believe me, I'm not."

"I'm so sorry, Jonathan."

"Clearly." Jonathan glared over at Jacob, who was trying hard not to keep glancing over at me. "I'm sure you'll find comfort _somewhere_."

Before I could say anything, he was walking away, as fast as he could go without breaking into a run. And then I was back by Jacob's side, and we were both heaving sighs of relief that we could touch again. I kept running my hand from his wrist to the sleeve of his black t-shirt: a habit left over from childhood, when I was fascinated by the fine dark hair on his arms. All the pieces that had gone missing from my life were tumbling back into place. Jacob was where I needed to be.

* * *

Jacob and I planned to drive back to Forks, starting at dawn two days after graduation. He had to get back to the Pack, which had grown since we'd left.

"After all that bullshit with the Volturi, every nomad in North America decided they needed to come take a swipe at us." He glared at Edward as he said this, but Edward didn't bother to look ashamed. As far as I knew, none of it had been specifically Edward's fault, but it might as well have been: he'd threatened the tribe with this exact scenario. What a dick. Jacob sounded smug as he added, "We've gotten pretty good at nomads." Like it was a game.

Carlisle looked mournful. "How has this impacted the tribe?"

"Well, thanks to you assholes drawing attention to Forks, we've had a bunch of new wolves in the last four years to cope with the nomads. Sam, Quil and Jared don't phase anymore because of their imprints. It sucked majorly when Sam gave up Alpha-ing, because it tore the packs a new one, but then Leah split off to take over for him. Everyone shuffled around for a while till we found a good balance. Leah is a total maniac. She's killed more bloodsuckers on her own than anyone else."

"Wow," I commented. "I can't wait to get in on this." Nine pairs of shocked eyes fixed on me. Even if my family had had working lungs, they still wouldn't have been breathing. Edward snapped the arm of the chair he was pretending to sit in.

Jacob was the first to recover. "Right on, beautiful."

"No," said Edward with an insane glint in his eyes. "No, no, no, no, NO. You are not even suggesting this thing."

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said innocently, "Did you want to spare all the serial murderers who float through Forks?"

"This is not your fight, Renesmee," Carlisle said. I turned on him.

"Oh, the noble doctor has spoken!" I had never addressed Carlisle this way, but the vitriol had been building and it had to find a outlet. "You guys are used to making it 'not your fight,' aren't you? Unless someone you personally like is threatened, you don't lift a finger. You know, I don't even get why you bother with the animal blood. You let humans die all the time. You let the Volturi go back to Italy. What do you think they've been doing all these years? Making daisy chains?" I knew I was being mean, but I was _right_. This thought had been ulcerating inside me for months now.

Carlisle looked elegantly offended. Alice and Rosalie at least had the grace to look a little guilty. Emmett was actually stifling laughter, which was no surprise. He'd wanted to go after the Volturi for ages, but he couldn't do it without help. And he always got a kick when I told off the others.

"Edward, you made me stay here for four years. You made me finish high school. Fine. I've had a normal life, sort of. I've certainly had an expensive life. Now it's time for me to have a useful one." I stood apart from the others, fists clenched at my sides, touching no one, not even Jacob. This was important to me. I'd never felt this strongly about anything. Edward looked like he'd been smacked. Before he could say anything, Rosalie spoke unexpectedly.

"Edward, she's right. We aren't much better than them. But Renesmee is. You should let her do this."

Edward looked pleadingly at first Carlisle, then Esme, and finally Alice. They just looked somber. Alice shook her head. "I haven't looked in on her in three years, Edward. I don't know what's going to happen, but even if she stays here with us I'm not using my gift on her any more. I promised."

"You promised, too, Edward," said Bella softly. Edward spun around to look at her, his last ally.

"To go back to Forks, not to adopt such a dangerous lifestyle!" But with even Bella on my side, Edward knew he had lost. His face crumpled, and I knew I would have my way. I met Jacob's eyes and saw my own excitement reflected back at me. He was practically bubbling over with anticipation.

"Hell, let's all go help!" said Emmett excitedly, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "I need a new hobby anyway."

* * *

So as not to inflict any more phasings on the tribe and arouse suspicion in all the inhabitants of Forks who'd known them as teenagers years ago, the Cullens decided to move to Sooke, British Columbia, which would be close enough for contact. I soundly refused to live with them. I was driving back with Jacob in my Phaeton. I said my goodbyes to my family with promises to call and visit as soon as they got settled in a nice mansion. Alice packed me vast quantities of clothing, much of which I had never seen in my closet before. I thinned the herd at a Goodwill on my way out of town. What use would I have for seventeen pairs of dupioni shorts in Forks?

Our second day on the road, Jacob cut my hair square off at the neck. Divested of its heavy load, my head felt like it might float away. It was exactly the way I'd felt when Jean and I tried pot for the first time. The new cut looked good on me; I didn't look nearly so much like my mother. Bella had always gotten that sad, pathetic look when I even mentioned a trim, but I was done being Bella's Renesmee. I was going to be Nessie, from here on out. After he had worked a pair of Esme's heavy Ginghers through my hair-leaving nicks along the now dulled steel blades-we danced like pagans in a wheat field next to the highway. Jacob held me by the wrists and swung me in circles till I was dizzy and crippled by laughter. My efficient German car was too small to hold all of our happiness. We cranked the music up and the windows down and sang and joked and screamed at the top of our lungs for no better reason than that it felt damn good.

* * *

After four years away from Jacob, I could begin to sort out what the imprint did to us. I could feel the difference between love-real, natural, complex, uncomfortable love-and the imprint, which was strong and ineffable and about as complicated as a muffin. With Jacob, I felt both.

The imprint caused Jacob and me to feel very nearly identical emotions simultaneously, particularly when said emotions resulted from werewolf-related activities. It was strongest when we were near but even in St. John's I had periodically felt it: enforced empathy. The bout of anxiety I'd felt in the fall of my sophomore year I had, at the time, attributed to hormones and missing Jacob. But he now told me that this was the time when a group of five vampires came through Forks, and the packs' numbers were down from Sam, Quil and Jared leaving. New wolves were phasing every other day, and with so many green wolves to wrangle they had barely managed the leeches.

"We got them down to two, but the last two were seriously fucked-up. Both packs were tracking one of them, but it kept making us forget where we were going, and we lost the other one. Then-you're never going to believe this."

"What happened?"

"Well, the one that made us forget was out hunting on the rez, and every time we got close it just used its power again and we wandered off looking for something to do. But it didn't realize the human it was targeting for its next victim was Elizabeth Greentree."

"Who's that?"

"At the time? She was no one. She was just some random chick on the rez. But the leech got close to her, he was right on top of her, ready to take a bite, and...she phased."

"_What_?"

"No shit. We didn't even see it coming. It happened so fast. She phased right under him and the force of it threw him off of her, and by the time he realized what had happened she had his head in her teeth. New wolves are really disoriented, they have no idea what's happening and they don't know how to fight, but she acted on pure instinct. He never even got a chance to use his power on her."

"Damn."

"We can't be sure, but my theory is that he forced her change. I mean, the Alpha can feel if a new wolf's about to phase into their pack, and Leah didn't feel a damn thing out of Elizabeth. She must have had a latent gene somewhere and when the leech got that close to her it just exploded. The second she phased Leah saw what was going on, and Leah showed me, and after that it was just a matter of rounding up his mate, and we were having a celebratory bonfire by mid-afternoon."

"Holy shit. I think...I remember that."

"How?"

"This was in October, right? A year after I left?"

"Yeah. How did you know-"

"I felt it. I freaked out for like a month for no reason, and then one random day, also for no reason, I just felt invincible. It was in October. It was the day I asked out Jonathan. I think I was feeling what you were feeling."

"Are you serious?"

"It was so weird at the time. I didn't even feel like myself. I really think I was just picking up on your emotions. You felt like hot shit, so I felt like hot shit."

And that was what the imprint did to us.

But then again, Jacob hadn't been dreaming about me naked, which led me to deduce that my crush was just a natural result of hitting puberty and having a best friend who was the pinnacle of hotness. A normal part of being human-well, half-human.

I had to try to think of this as if the imprint didn't exist. I'd had a crush on a childhood friend, but no contact with him for four years. Could an ordinary crush survive that long a separation? Probably. But if this was an ordinary crush, then I could deal with it. It wasn't a magical unassailable bond of romantic, imprint-y love. I knew, because if it were, Jacob would be feeling it too.

And I could tell already that Jacob's interest in me had not changed in four years.


	8. Fitting In

**Thanks for reading, thanks Man for beta'ing, thanks for your sweet reviews and thanks Universe for cinnamon-sugar-toast. And extra fancy bonus points to anyone who catches the extremely veiled reference to Dan Blogs Twilight, ( 2009/07/16/blogging-twilight-index-page), which I highly recommend you read.  
**

* * *

Forks had changed. For one thing, the packs were huge. There were more wolves than I'd ever seen before, and several of them were female. There were enough wolves now that the young ones-of which there were many, thanks to the surge in vampiric activity a few years ago-could still put most of their focus on school. Jacob was particularly proud of this.

"I don't want anyone else to have to get their GED. Then you're always that guy who has a GED." Self-deprecation notwithstanding, he gave a wide grin of simple, unashamed pride: he'd fought for his education, and now the younger ones wouldn't have to.

Leah, now Alpha of the other pack, greeted me with her customary distrust, which I didn't take personally. Seth, on the other hand, was delighted to see me. He could certainly tell I was an adult female, even if Jacob couldn't.

"Dude, Nessie," he said. "You got _hot_." Whereupon Jacob, Leah and Embry all smacked him upside the head.

"It's true," he said defensively.

"Maybe," said Leah, "But she's still half-leech."

"And she's Jacob's anyway," added Embry.

"What?" yelped Jacob. "Dude, I used to change her diapers! What do you take me for?"

"Sure," said Embry. "Until she potty trained herself when she was two months old."

"All right, all right, everyone shut up." These people were _my kind of people_. "Seth, you're right. I am hot. Leah, you're right too, I am half-leech. I'm also half-Bella. Maybe in this case two wrongs make a right?" Leah pressed her lips together.

"But Embry, you're dead wrong. I potty-trained myself at three weeks." Then I tackled him and started yanking on his hair. He was too surprised to fight me off, and everyone else was laughing too hard to intervene.

The newest wolves had mixed reactions to me. Those in Jacob's pack had seen me in his head from time to time, and heard about me from him and Seth. They were generally disposed to think well of me. So when I saw Seth, Collin and Brady again, and met the new ones, they were all curious and mostly nice. Leah's pack was harder, though. If she thought of me at all it was with mild disgust. Paul accepted me, in his surly way, and Embry was sincerely glad to see me again. I would have to convince the rest that I was on their side.

It didn't take long for Leah to start in on me.

"So, I guess now that you're around Jacob will be useless."

"I don't know what you mean."

"You're being really selfish, you know. We were all getting along fine. Now we're going to have to babysit you instead of tracking down leeches, like we're supposed to."

I couldn't really be mad at Leah. She was sort of right-or at least, she thought she was, which amounted to the same thing in this case.

"Actually, I came back to help."

"Help. Yeah. Right. You know who else wanted to 'help'? That damn mother of yours. Her 'helping' almost got us all killed, several times over. It almost got Jacob killed." She had a point. Bella was criminally bad at helping. She wasn't clumsy now that she had vampire reflexes, and she had that schmoopy love-shield, but critical thinking was not her strong point, and she wouldn't even brush her hair without Edward's say-so. I took a deep breath. Stupid and useless as my mother was, I still loved her. Okay, I was closer to Rosalie and Alice. And I could never respect her. But I wouldn't say a word against her to Leah Clearwater.

"You're right," I said carefully. Leah's nostrils flared. "My mother was a volatile presence in this town. And she could barely take care of herself, let alone anyone else. But I'm not her. I don't know how I can convince you of this, but it's true: I'm _not her_."

"Convince me by leaving again."

"No. I'm here to fight leeches."

"Leave."

"I'm a good fighter. I can be a great fighter. I don't back down."

"How do you think this is going to go, _Renesmee_?" She hissed my name like it was a noxious odor. It _was _a pretty dumb name. "You think Jacob's going to give you some big mission? And you'll be the big hero? Because he won't. We don't have heroes. And he'll never send you into danger."

"You would." Leah inspected a torn fingernail guardedly.

"Damn straight I would."

"I agree with you. Jake won't want to put me in any real danger. But you don't answer to him. You could use me. I'm strong. I'm fast. And I guarantee you that no bloodsucking nomad is going to expect me."

"Jacob's not going to let you do this. Right now he may think it's cool that you wanna fight, but I've seen inside the heads of those imprinted nutjobs, and when it comes down to it, they're all the same. Kim wanted to help. Emily wanted to help. William tried to-"

"William?"

Leah sighed and absentmindedly ran her hands over the bristly short hairs at the back of her head. "Elizabeth's imprint. He tried to help us with something. It wasn't even that dangerous, he was just getting information. Elizabeth was all about it. Hell, it was her idea. She said she wanted him to be involved, he might make a difference..."

"So what happened?"

"He got within a half-mile of a bloodsucker and Elizabeth nearly went into cardiac arrest. It was fucking awful. She abandoned her post and went tearing off to save her boyfriend. She wasn't even herself anymore. That's exactly what Jacob will do. He may tell you this is a great idea now, but the second you're within biting distance of a leech, he'll go apeshit. You'll just make a mess for the rest of us to clean up."

"I don't think that'll happen, Leah. We just spent four years apart. We used to go hunting together. He'll get used to this, I know he will. I'm not going to sit pretty just because I'm someone's imprint. Jacob is not the only one who gets to be useful."

"Trust me, once he sees what it's like having his precious imprint involved, he'll tell you to stand down."

"So what if he does? I love Jacob, but I don't belong to him."

Leah looked about as impressed as I'd ever seen her, which was to say she wasn't actively insulting me. Maybe she thought I would be more like Bella, led around by the nose, a pet for more powerful males to protect. Leah tilted her head fractionally to the side, like a cat contemplating a mouse who had just told it to go fuck itself.

"Fine," she said.

"Really?"

"I said _fine_, numbskull, do you want an engagement ring? First patrol is tonight. I hope you're well rested, because you're on with Embry from six to midnight. Stick to his ass like glue, but don't hamper him. You're not privy to the pack-mind, so he won't be able to talk to you unless he unphases. But if I recall correctly, you can tell him things without speaking. In fact, try not to talk at all. He'll meet you at the rock beach." Leah disappeared without another word. I did a silent victory dance and ran home to change.

* * *

The patrol went pretty well, all things considered. Leah did me a favor by pairing me with Embry, although she would never have admitted to it. He met me in the appointed spot, naked as the day he was born. I didn't bother to blush, which I suspect disappointed him. I wore earth-colored shorts and an earth-colored shirt. I was very hard to spot, but Embry smelled me immediately.

"You don't smell like the leeches," he commented.

"You already knew that."

"Yeah." He phased, and we began our patrol.

Nothing really happened. There hadn't been a leech around for a couple of months, and we weren't expecting anything now. I kept within a few feet of Embry at all times. When Leah relieved Embry at midnight, she scowled at me, but she also said,

"No fuckups, huh? Same time, same place tomorrow."

* * *

Of course, Jacob knew what I was up to. He came to Charlie's house, where I was staying until I could think of anything better. Charlie let us hang out in the living room. We weren't allowed in my bedroom, which was really the attic with an old iron bedstead shoved into a corner. I didn't want to stay in my mother's old room. Jacob's eyes did not stray to my boobs once. He didn't fidget or jump when we touched or exhibit any of the exhilarated discomfort that I had learned to expect from boys who found me sexually attractive, which was most boys who were straight. Sadly, Charlie needn't have worried. Apparently, changing my diapers really _had _turned Jacob off me for life. I wasn't surprised, given the relationship between Claire and Quil, which I had discovered was platonic in the extreme. Jacob had always told me that an imprinted wolf will be anything their imprintee needs them to be, whether brother or friend or lover, but until now I hadn't really believed him. It just went to show that an imprint wasn't a guarantee of anything.

So no, I wasn't surprised, but I was disappointed, because Jacob had only gotten hotter in the last four years and the wet dreams were getting to be an inconvenience. If he had so much as winked in my direction I would have disrobed in seconds, but I could always tell when someone wanted to have sex with me, and Jacob emphatically _didn't_. Asshole.

"So...you went to Leah, huh?" Jacob squinted at the handful of cards he was holding and thoughtfully placed four kings between us on the couch.

"Yeah. Are you mad? And do you have any sevens?"

"Not mad, no. Curious, though. Go fish."

"Well, I wanted to prove to Leah that I'm not just here to jerk everyone around."

"She'd have picked up on that eventually. Any aces?"

"Go fish, and no she wouldn't. She doesn't trust me, and honestly I agree with her. She doesn't think you would have given me any real jobs to do. Jacks?"

"Here. I would, too. And how is running patrol a 'real job'?"

"Sevens? At least it's a start. Besides, Seth is her brother but he's in your pack. You can't tell me that's a coincidence. Hey, is that Charlie taking his good night piss?"

"Go fish and I think so. Also, you have a point. Seth tried being in Leah's pack right when she first broke off, but the bond didn't take."

"What bond?"

"The bond between an Alpha and its pack. If I give Seth an order using my Alpha voice, he has to do it. No one but me has that power over him. When Sam left to be with Emily, we had no idea who was going to take over, and for a while I just had all the wolves looking at me for commands. But my Alpha voice didn't work on most of Sam's wolves. They would still do what I said, but only because they wanted to. If they wanted to disobey me, they could."

Jacob noticed my skeptical look and hurried to add, "I know it sounds better that way, but it's really not: there needs to be someone who can see everything that's going on, sort through their options and make the choices objectively. The Alpha's the only one who sees the whole picture, but that picture is no use if someone who can't see it decides to start calling the shots. So, Leah was my Beta at the time, and when some of Sam's wolves started to balk at the orders I was giving them, she would step in and issue those orders herself. And eventually, when she gave an order she gave it in an Alpha voice, and after that it just sorted itself out. She broke off with the wolves who were affected by her Alpha voice, which was most of Sam's wolves and a few of mine, and I stayed with my pack plus the few of Sam's old pack that took to my orders right away. And Seth...well, obviously Seth thought he should go with his sister. She wanted him in her pack, so she could keep an eye on him, and I thought it made more sense that way, since they were related. He kept trying and trying, and she kept giving him orders, but that bond just never took. He couldn't break into her pack no matter how hard they both tried, and eventually we just had to accept that Seth was meant to be in my pack, not hers."

"There's a lesson here. You can't be Alpha over someone you're trying to protect."

"I think I saw that on a shirt once. Did Charlie just get into bed?"

"I think so. Go Fish sucks. Wanna go see who can throw a tree the farthest?"

"Sure, sure."

* * *

About three weeks after I started running patrols, something good happened. Leah had me on every night for the first two weeks, possibly trying to break me, possibly trying to get the pack used to me. Most likely both.

I was running patrol with Elizabeth Greentree at three in the morning when I caught it. Not a smell, but a sound. It was far away, but it definitely wasn't human or animal. Not alive at all. I touched my hand to Elizabeth's furry shoulder blade and transmitted the sound, and then the wind shifted and we both smelled it.

Vampire. And definitely not the Cullens. This one smelled different from them, strong and cloying. I remembered the scent of human-eating vampires from my first few months of life, and it was just like this. None of the heady pretty smells I got from my family, but a blunt, noxious, sweet smell.

I felt the tiny ripple go through Elizabeth that meant she was bleeding this thought into the mind of whichever other wolf was awake. Leah had a very efficient system worked out: one wolf ran patrol while she stayed awake in wolf form, so she would know if anything happened. If she wasn't awake, she assigned another wolf to phase and stay within shouting range of her, so that she was never out of the loop.

Elizabeth and I started sprinting in the direction of the smell. I'd given up human blood as a toddler, and now the smell of it was nauseating. I imagined this might be how a human adult would feel if told to drink milk from his mother's sagging teat.

It was an easy trail to follow, though.

We caught up with Embry and Paul close to the beach. They fanned out so we could surround the mosquito. I knew they were all talking to each other in their heads, but I had no idea what they were saying. Leah was probably somewhere close, following the chase through their eyes. Suddenly Elizabeth stopped, looked pointedly at me, then jerked her head upward. She repeated the motion in an exaggerated way. I jumped into a tree and began to follow her above the ground.

Elizabeth wove silently through the underbrush and I leapt as silently from branch to branch, keeping pace. I heard a rustle, the air thickened into a wall of stink, and then suddenly there she was: the first human-eater I had seen since infancy.

She was beautiful. I had to take a split second to appreciate her. She looked about forty-five, elegant and lean like Coco Chanel. She was dashing toward Elizabeth and me. Elizabeth prepared to spring, but the leech leapt over her before she could get her haunches in order. She even laughed, like it was all a lot of fun. She turned and swiped at Elizabeth, cutting a geyser into her thigh. Elizabeth yelped and went down. The leech ran. I ran with her, hidden in the branches. She was through the perimeter and had too much of a lead; she would almost certainly get away. I did the only thing I could think of, and jumped to a tree upwind of her.

She stopped. I saw her perfect nostrils flare. She looked like royalty. Her eyes flicked upward, and in them I read confusion and curiosity. She had caught my scent.

I descended like Death from my tree and pinned her arms to her sides. I had just enough time to appreciate the bewilderment in her face before Seth, Sean and Embry burst out of the forest and tore her perfect body to pieces.

* * *

"Not bad," Leah told me. It was the highest praise she'd ever given me and I glowed like a preschooler. Lest my head get too big, she added, "That was only a solo leech, though. Usually there are more of them."

* * *

"Nessie, holy shit, what happened? I can't fucking believe I missed your first fight."

"It wasn't really my fight, Jake. I just distracted her."

"Well?"

"She was really attractive. I think I might be a little bit lesbian after this." I was only part-joking.

"That is truly sickening. Leeches don't move right. They move like Disney sequels."

"I don't know about that. I might also be a grave robber after this."

"In more ways than one. Nessie, I swear to God, if you ever hook up with a leech I am going to take back my Star Wars tapes."

"No!" I yelled. "Don't take Han-Shot-First!"

"Well, what happened?" he asked.

"As far as I can tell, she smelled me and it disarmed her."

"You rank son of a bitch."

"Seriously, Jake! It was bizarre. Hey, what do I smell like to you? Do I smell leechy?" Jacob leaned over and sniffed my armpit.

"Kind of? Not really. You don't smell nasty, and leeches smell nasty. You smell more human than anything else, but also kind of...sweetish."

"I smell Swedish?" He gave me a Look.

"I would say, if a leech smells like antifreeze, which they do, you smell like pancakes."

"Do I smell like loam?"

"The fuck is loam?"

"Who knows? Bella says I smell like a delicious muffin wrapped up in vampirely goodness. I just have a breakfast vibe, I guess. Apparently this one thought so too. She didn't even try to fight me. I mean, when I got my arms around her she struggled, but by then it was too late. She didn't even identify me as an enemy, and nomads think _everything _is an enemy."

"You did pretty damn good."

"Are you still sorry I'm working with Leah?"

"Nah. I think that sonovabitch actually kind of likes you."

* * *

After that first fight, I became a regular part of the wolf rotation. When Jacob's team found a group of four nomads, I was alerted. Leah instructed me to stay close but out of sight and out of scenting distance, preferably in the trees, where I could move more quietly than either a vampire or a werewolf. I started living in the canopy. This group was much more coordinated and experienced than the middle-aged vamp. We read of half a dozen disappearances in the paper and assumed there were more that went unnoticed. Every wolf became involved, even the young ones still in school. Patrols were full-time gigs, with no fewer than ten wolves out at a time. And still it took us a week to get a grip on them.

It was Dale, one of Leah's younger wolves, who finally got a bead on the group. I was with Embry at the time, and as soon as he saw the group in his mind he growled, then snapped his teeth three times. Three snaps meant _get in the trees and follow me_. Without breaking stride, I leapt for a branch and swung myself into the canopy. It was a little harder running through the trees than on the ground. My reflexes were fast, but I had to take an extra sixteenth of a second to make sure I only landed on branches that wouldn't break under my weight or make the slightest noise. As it was, I fell a little behind. When I caught up with the wolves in a clearing littered with busted-up tree stumps, they had already attacked the leeches. They weren't doing so well. One of the leeches had a power that I couldn't identify until I saw her glance over at a redwood, which immediately crashed down on Ben. She didn't even have to touch it. That explained the carnage. The wolves couldn't get near them because all they had to do was create a constant barrage of flying trees. They were really fucking up the forest. My forest. My blood surged. These were old-growth redwoods! _Had they no decency?_

Okay, I wasn't going to get near them if I did what the wolves were doing-namely, a frontal assault. I saw that Leah, Embry and Elizabeth were missing. They were either injured or trying to work their way around the leeches somehow. Hopefully the latter. I knew I was missing something, but I couldn't figure out what. Emmett always told me to analyze the situation and _then _barge in. And Leah was very clear about my job: if the wolves were losing or at a stalemate, trick, distract or otherwise handicap the leeches so the wolves could make the kill. No trying to play the hero. Fine.

Four leeches. Two male, two female. Older female with telekinesis. She occasionally picked up a wolf at random and sent him flying, but she didn't send them far or throw them hard enough to inflict any real damage, and she never picked up more than one at a time. It looked like her gift had limitations, but I couldn't make any assumptions about that this early on. Younger female and blonde male fighting tooth and nail to plug up any wolves who leaked through the tree siege. Dark-skinned male just standing there. Something was up with him. What was his deal? I circled around to the side to get a better view and then I saw it. Just before a wolf attacked, he would nod at the telekinetic one and she sent a tree smashing down on the attacker.

Okay. Premonition or mind-reading, not sure which. Either way, I could work with this. The combination of powers was keeping the wolves at bay. If it went on for very long, the wolves would tire and be forced to retreat. They would still get the leeches, but they would have to do it another day, maybe lose another couple humans in the delay. But if I could put the odds back in our favor the fight could be ended now.

Hopefully the dark male was so tied up with the wolves that he hadn't noticed me. If premonition was his gift, he'd keep his eye on my future as soon as he saw me. If it was mind-reading, it was important for me to be convincing, and for the wolves to figure out what I was doing before the leeches did. In case mind-reading was his gift, I wouldn't be able to just saunter upwind of him like I usually did; he would hear relief surging through the wolves and know I was an opponent. Not much of a distraction.

I had to muddy the waters, throw the wolves into enough confusion to make the leeches question what they were seeing. I saw Jacob below me and a few feet to the left, preparing to spring. With a screech I fell on top of him and wrestled him to the ground.

_You dogs_, I thought loudly. _This is the last time you fight on my turf_. Jacob responded immediately. I hoped the imprint would make itself useful for once and help me help the wolves. As far as I could tell, it worked. Without betraying even an ounce of surprise, Jacob fought back. Of course, he was fighting the way we did for fun, but it looked and sounded dreadful. He was all snarling teeth and claws. I gave him a shallow bite on the scalp, because I knew it would bleed a lot and enhance the illusion that we were really enemies. I saw the dark male's eyes flick over to us and watch us impassively. Instead of thinking about how much I hoped Leah was coming around the back, I thought about how these dogs had been a stone in my shoe from day one. After a decent interval, Jacob let me subdue him. I shoved him hard against a tree and heard several ribs crack. Oops. I couldn't even think the word _Sorry_.

I heard the other wolves getting into formation around me, growling and dripping foam onto the forest floor. I turned to face them and forced my mouth into a sneer. They circled closer and closer. Seth was closest, and he looked positively rabid. Just before he sprung, I jumped directly up into a tree and he crashed into its trunk. _Perfect_. Seth was incredibly quick, mentally and physically. He would never smash accidentally into a tree trunk. He must know what was going on. If he did, that probably meant the other wolves did too. I hoped they all had the sense not to think about it. I jumped to a tree closer to the leeches and saw the male look at the older female. I barely had time to register this before she made my branch soar to the ground just inside their barricade of broken trees. I rolled when I landed and stood up, my hands tightly balled into fists.

"Who are you and what are you doing in my territory?" I snapped. I heard the wolves behind me renew their growling and circle closer. If I didn't know they were on my side, I would be pretty fucking terrified right now.

The blonde male took a short step toward me. "And what are you, might I ask?" He had what could only be described as a leer on his face. The older female cast him a furious look. I gave him a once-over, then stood up a little straighter. "Your smell is...absolutely enchanting," he smarmed. "You look positively good enough to eat." The younger female and the probably-psychic male chuckled darkly. I gave them both a leer of my own.

"Don't I just," I said caustically. "I live here. You don't. You're making a mess of my town. Police are starting to notice. I've cultivated a nice little _rancho _here in Forks and I don't want to lose it just because you idiots can't clean up after yourselves."

"That's fair," said the young male. "But you still haven't told us who you are." He licked his lips.

"I'm the goddamn antichrist. Who are you?" Before he could answer, I continued, "You know what? I don't even give a fuck. Once you've cleaned up the puppies here, I want you gone." The "puppies" were right up against the barricade now, and I could hear them assembling themselves in some sort of formation. The vamps' attention was all on me, though. This was good, particularly since now I could hear Leah and the others approaching behind the leeches.

"And why should we do that?" the blonde one asked. I held my hand out, palm down. He looked over at the psychic, who squinted at me and then gave a curt nod. I was prepared for this moment. I'd spent long afternoons playing this game with Jacob: show him something imaginary, convince him it was real. Every detail had to be right, but I'd gotten very good at it. The blonde reached out and touched one finger to the back of my hand.

I pictured a scene of total destruction: the four of them cowering in a raging forest fire, penned by legions of bus-sized snakes with white-hot scales. Then I opened the ground beneath them and it swallowed them whole, spitting out fire and crushing them into powder as it closed. The blonde jerked his hand away.

"I don't believe you," he said. I saw curiosity blossoming on the three faces behind him.

"Yes you do," I said simply.

The older woman took a step forward. "What did-" she began, but she never finished, because in another instant her head was dangling loosely from Leah's teeth. The psychic saw it coming a second too late: Jacob's team sprang over the barricade as one and swarmed over the leeches while Leah's team prevented them from retreating. They fought back, but with the telekinetic decapitated their main defense was gone. In ten more minutes, the leeches were all heaped together in fragments and Jacob was holding a lighter out to me.

"That was some damn fine acting there, Antichrist. Wanna do the honors?"


	9. Different Kinds of Love

**Thanks for reading! I hope you like!  
**

**ETA: Whoops! Thanks to the reader who pointed out a copy/paste error in the document. Fixed now. Sorry to leave you thinking about William's left wrinkly ;}  
**

* * *

By the time the Cullens made their way to British Columbia (by way of Greenland, the Northwest Territories and Alaska) I had settled fairly well into the packs. I never made a kill on my own-as a half-human, it was unlikely I would ever get the upper hand of a full vampire in a frontal assault. But I was good at tweaking circumstances to give the wolves the upper hand. A form of nonverbal communication (mostly involving well-calibrated growls and tooth clicks) evolved to let me know what the wolves were doing and how to time my attacks. Leah would never glow with praise but she liked my trick with the psychic.

"It's good to have a secret weapon," she told me. "It doesn't really even matter what the weapon is, so long as it's a secret."

When Emmett heard about it, he high-fived me so hard he dislocated my shoulder, which he was kind enough to pop painfully back into place

Of course, most of my involvement with the packs was less glitzy. I didn't often occupy the spotlight. The Packs worked as a team; there was no room for showboats. Leah was right when she said the packs had no heroes, although everyone stood in awe of her spectacular count of twenty-three leeches killed in single combat. Even Jacob had only thirteen, and the closest anyone else came was Seth, at five.

I wasn't of much use as a fighter, because I lacked the wolves' telepathy. I would only get in their way unless I fought alongside the one or two wolves with whom I had a particular connection. But I was astonishingly good at distracting the leeches. My scent was a complete novelty to the monsters, attractive and bewildering and occasionally even seductive. I was extremely deft at getting to the leeches that broke through the wolves' perimeter. I never fought one to death on my own, but I was strong enough and fast enough to detain them until furry destruction could catch up.

* * *

During my senior year at St. Augustine's, I had applied for several colleges. I was accepted to all of them, and money wasn't an issue. Edward wanted me at an Ivy League school, preferably on the east coast, but to those I didn't even apply. When Harvard, Yale and Brown sent me acceptance letters, I threw them in the trash unopened.

Jacob had finished his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering just before I graduated high school. Now he wanted other wolves to have a chance at college. He'd cobbled together his education online, with a few classes on campus. He, Sam and Leah insisted that the younger wolves finish high school on schedule. Thanks to the influx of vampires in the area around the time of my birth, there were plenty of wolves to pick from; there was never much pressure on any particular wolf to be available nonstop. With careful scheduling, no one ever quite fell behind in school. Several of the newer wolves that I met were rarely assigned to patrol because they had papers to write and tests to study for. It was a delicate balance, but it worked. And having me around helped. The wolves spent half as much time actually fighting the leeches, which left more time for school, or work, or imprints.

It felt so good to be useful again that I decided to really piss off Edward and take classes online-from a community college, no less. It worked. He didn't speak to me for a month, but eventually he realized I didn't consider that a punishment and started calling me nightly to talk about my assignments. I let it go to voicemail more often than not.

* * *

Most of the Cullens didn't try to come help the wolves, though Emmett and Rosalie did their part. The Cullens had always stuck to a non-involvement policy. They didn't want to attract attention. But year after year of high school, then college, then highschool again, was not a satisfying life for Emmett. So he and Rosalie broke off from the Cullens to keep an eye out in the woods and towns around Forks. Occasionally, a leech broke away from the wolves and escaped Forks. This was largely the reason that so many vampires targeted Forks: vampires don't read the news, but they do listen to tales from other vampires of interesting or challenging hunting grounds, and a bored leech will do anything to spice up eternity.

When this did happen, Emmett and Rosalie would trap them, decapitate them, burn their bodies and then bring their heads to Jacob. The best part was that the vampire heads kept trying to talk, even without larynxes. They would gape and scowl and show their teeth. They were pretty little beached fishes, gasping for air.

When Rosalie and Emmett brought the first head to Jacob, I thought Rosalie looked a little unsettled. She handed over the box containing a dark-haired leech without looking at it. Jacob sniffed it to verify that it was the one who'd slipped away from the wolves, then walked off to start an evil bonfire with Seth, Leah and Elizabeth. Emmett followed, telling Jacob about the fight and demonstrating that if you poked a certain bundle of nerves under the occipital lobe you could make the leech make funny faces. I lingered behind with Rosalie.

"Are you okay with this?" I asked her. She nodded vehemently. "You don't look okay. You don't have to get involved. I know this wasn't your fight-"

"He's your enemy. That makes him my enemy." Rosalie looked so fierce that for a moment I felt sorry for the leech in the box.

"The others don't like that you're doing this, do they?"

Rosalie shrugged. "Esme and Carlisle are just worried, I think. Jasper doesn't want to do it for a variety of reasons, and without him Alice won't. But Edward's being a real prick about it. No offense."

"When is he not a prick?"

Rosalie lifted her eyebrows. "Good point. He does have a tendency to lecture. He thinks I'm endangering the coven needlessly. If you ask me, he should be helping us. I mean, you're his daughter."

"You're doing a really good thing, Rosie. Even if Edward doesn't see that." Rosalie gave me a saucy grin.

"There's a lot about me he doesn't know."

"Right?"

"No, I mean...a _lot_." Rosalie began twirling a perfect strand of golden hair around one finger. "He thinks he knows everything, just because he can read minds. He doesn't understand how invasive that is. The rest of us...well, we tolerate it because we care about him. But we all have our little ways of dealing. Emmett thinks about inane things when Edward's around. I've heard Edward describe Emmett as 'uncomplicated'. He says it's why he likes him."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Well, for one thing, no one's uncomplicated. For another thing, that's Edward's way of saying he thinks Emmett's stupid. And Emmett is many things, but stupid is not one of them. And reading drivelly Shakespearean barf-sonnets does not make Edward smart. I prefer John Donne, myself. Much tastier."

"Wow. I can't believe he thinks Emmett's not smart. Emmett's the one who taught me Italian just so I wouldn't have to read a translation of _The Decameron_! That's classical literature, too, you'd think Edward would eat that shit up with a spoon."

"Hardly. You have read it, right?"

"Um...partly. Okay, I read the intro."

"Well, read the rest of it and you'll see why Emmett likes it and why Edward doesn't."

I looked at Rosalie blankly. She sighed and said,

"It's completely filthy. Fourteenth-century porn, very sexy and sweaty." She paused and then added as an afterthought, "And it has lots of swears."

"Ahhh." No wonder Edward didn't like it. He hated it when humans had libidoes. Or any emotion at all other than chaste adoration. We walked in silence for a few minutes.

"So, that's what Emmett does, right? What do you do to keep Edward out?

"I think about myself."

"What do you mean?"

"Surely you've noticed by now that Edward is convinced that I am the most vapid little princess on the planet."

"...Yeah. Sorry 'bout that."

"Don't be. I've spent decades cultivating that persona. I don't want him digging through the layers of my mind. What right has he to listen in on my thoughts? So I keep him trapped in the top layer. I keep my thoughts bored and boring. He expects me to be shallow, vain and self-centered, and that's what I give him. I don't let him hear how I feel about Emmett, or you, or science fiction."

"Seriously? Science fiction?" Rosalie looked like she might want to blush.

"What? Blade Runner was really good! I saw it when it came out like, ten times. I totally figured out that Harrison Ford was a replicant."

"Spoiler alert, Rose!" She looked at me guiltily. "Nah, I'm just kidding," I teased, nudging her with my elbow. "I already read that on TV Tropes."

"We all do it to some extent." she went on. "Esme _really _polices her thoughts around him; she never lets anything unkind or impure slip through. She has bitchy days just like the rest of us, and Edward's not privy to that. Alice spends so much time listening in on the future that she doesn't have to worry about it too much; if he starts eavesdropping, Alice can just pick some random, tedious future to think about and Edward leaves her alone. It works out okay, most of the time."

"I wonder what he'd think if he ever listened to his own thoughts," I said. Rosalie snorted and I continued, "I used to have to think about stupid shit to keep him out, but it's been a lot easier lately. He tries to listen whenever I go up to Sooke to see them, but I don't think he hears much. He gets that pissy look and starts asking me personal questions. I can tell when he's listening, because he stops pretending to act human. I don't think he knows he does that."

"Huh," Rosalie said speculatively. "Let's _not _tell him."

* * *

I only slept at Charlie's about half the time: the rest of my nights were spent hunting leeches and crashing with Elizabeth Greentree, who had a well-stocked fridge and liquor cabinet and every _Zelda_video game ever made. Video games were a complete revelation to me. Out of seven years of expensive birthdays not one gaming system had emerged. It didn't occur to Bella that I might like one, and Edward probably worried it would rot my mind or steal my soul or something. I started on original Nintendo and worked my way up to the Playstations, often while drinking Corona, with Elizabeth and William in the peanut gallery.

Elizabeth and her imprint were not what I expected. I had never met anyone like them, least of all among the wolves. Elizabeth had none of Leah's bitterness. She was incredibly sensual: she moved like a goddess, she sang lustily and loud and with no regard for who might be listening. She even ate with a more refined appreciation than your average werewolf. She was also bisexual, and I could never figure out her relationship with William.

William was several years Elizabeth's senior; I placed his age at thirty or so. He was Makah, but he'd met Elizabeth at the wedding of a mutual cousin and the imprint had taken them with equal force. In one way, it was just like any other werewolf/imprint bond. They obviously loved each other very deeply, and I heard from the other wolves (and my own ears, one night when I didn't get out of her house fast enough) that they had an aggressive sex life. But she also pursued other lovers, and William didn't mind. He never seemed threatened when Elizabeth brought other men or women home-or when she didn't come home at all. I asked him about it.

"So," I said cautiously, "How does that whole thing work?"

William smiled knowingly and answered the question I was too afraid to ask.

"Elizabeth and me? I know I never have to question her love for me. She loves sex. She loves dick, which I can give her, and she loves taco, which I can't. I want her to be happy, and if that means she sleeps with men and women who can satisfy what I can't, then so be it. I never have to wonder if she loves me most." He smiled, as if he knew more than he was letting on. "So how about Jacob? He seems like an alright guy."

"Jake is amazing. You know, we imprinted-"

"When you were born." William laughed. "I've heard the story. It's practically a legend to the rest of us imprints."

"Yeah." I giggled. William's cheerfulness was infectious. "But even if we hadn't imprinted, I would still think he was the greatest thing since sliced cheese. He's just so funny, and he's happy and goofy and really smart and he knows everything about cars and he's...he's just _Jake_."

"Let me tell you something about imprints," William said, and leaned in conspiratorially. "Now, you've been imprinted way longer than I have, but I've noticed something that even Emily never picked up on."

"Yeah?"

"Your imprint? Doesn't mean shit. It's all an illusion."

"Um, I'm pretty sure that's bullshit, William."

"No, I mean, of course the imprint is _real_. No one doubts that it's _real_. But all the imprint does is tell you what you already know. I guarantee you that if I'd met Liz before she wolfed up, I still would have tried to pick her up, and if I had any sense, I'd never've let her go. Sam never should have been with Leah." I grunted, because Leah was starting to grow on me. "No, it's true. They were in love, sure, but love isn't enough for a relationship to succeed. They never would have worked out because they both want to be the top. Emily? She gets Sam. She knows when to take orders, and when to give them. This imprinting thing starts making a whole lotta sense if you just try to figure out what made the imprint take in the first place. For Kim and Jared, it was probably the sex. Those two are freaks in the sack." I veered wildly away from asking how William knew that. "Elizabeth is my soulmate. I'm hers. You know how I know?"

I shook my head mutely.

"Because Elizabeth has linen sheets on her bed."

"Uh...you've lost me." Linen sheets? Was that code for something?

"Linen sheets are way more expensive than silk, but they stay cool even in the shits of summer. That first night I spent with Elizabeth, I thought, fuck, here's a woman who wants to feel good. She wants her food to taste good, her music to sound good, her bed to feel like sleepin' on a cloud. She doesn't give a pixie's fart what other people expect of her. She likes being a werewolf because the speed feels good. She likes being a woman because her cunt feels good. Shit, I'd give my left wrinkly to be with a woman like that, even without the imprint. I just didn't know it till I met her."

* * *

My second summer back, Jean came to visit Forks. She stayed with me at Charlie's, sleeping in Bella's old room. We spent our days driving around, hiking, cliff-diving, swimming and hanging out on the rez. We drove to Seattle a few times to watch movies and shop and eat exciting food. I was surprised to find I actually liked sushi. It was nothing like red meat, but I found the texture intriguing, and even its very fishiness was an enjoyable novelty to one who'd drunk human blood before ever tasting mother's milk.

I introduced her to all the wolves. Before long, our days at the beach and in the woods included Jacob, Seth, Elizabeth and William, and occasionally even Leah. Surprisingly, Leah liked Jean right away. At any rate, it was no secret to her (or to any of us) that Seth and Jean were sprinting down the road to copulation, and she was still more or less nice to Jean. That was as big a vote of confidence as anyone ever got from Leah.

Jean hadn't met Jacob when he came to St. John's, although I told her about him. All Jean knew was that Jacob was my best childhood friend, and I had a crush on him-all true, so far as it went. We'd been Skyping and emailing and talking on the phone, so she knew some of what was going on in my life now, but nothing could prepare her for the reality of seeing me and Jacob together.

Jake and I went to pick her up from the airport, because neither of us was on zombie-duty and whenever we both had time off we spent it together. When Jean spotted me waiting by baggage claim, she squealed and I squealed and we ran to each other for the kind of hug only long-lost girlfriends are capable of.

"So, who's the man-meat? Is that...?" Jean squinted meaningfully at Jacob, who I saw with pleasure was standing with his hands in his pockets, with an awkward, out-of-place look on his face. What a goose.

"That's Jake!" He heard his name and strode forward.

"Hi," he said in that obscenely deep and velvety voice. He stuck out his hand. Jean put hers, which was at most half the size, into it and they shook. "I'm Jacob."

"Jean. And may I just say, it is thrilling to finally meet you. All-" Jean looked Jacob up and down "-three meters of you." Jacob laughed, a clean and happy sound. I laughed, too, glad to have my other best friend with me for a whole summer. And Jean laughed, because everyone else did.

* * *

I couldn't explain to Jean where I really went when I ran patrols. It wasn't a big deal to get nights off from Leah, but I couldn't ditch for a whole summer, not when I'd finally gotten the wolves to take me seriously. But of course, Jacob was the perfect excuse, ready-made. He and I wandered around at night half the time anyway, just for the sheer shit of it. Charlie didn't particularly like it, but he didn't quite know what to make of the discrepancy between my real age and my apparent age. He wanted to have house rules-and I abode by the ones that were really important to him-but I was a high school graduate, with the mind and body of a nineteen year old. Besides, I wasn't _his _daughter. So I didn't drink or use illegal substances under his roof, and I let him know where I was going to be in case there was an emergency. Other than that, I was my own keeper.

So Jean assumed I was with Jacob when I stayed out all night. Sometimes I was, sometimes I wasn't. We weren't doing what she thought we were doing, but she didn't believe me when I told her that.

"Um, so how is it with the Jolly Red Giant?" she asked me one day while we were smoking pot lazily in a forest clearing. A half-eaten bag of mustard pretzels and four empty bottles of ginger ale lay between us on the star-spangled, moth-eaten blanket we'd dug out of Charlie's basement.

"How's what?" I asked casually.

"You know..._intercourse_." Jean giggled.

"Wouldn't know. We haven't coursed."

Jean gave me a hazy stare of disbelief.

"Yes you have," she said.

"Believe me, I wish you were right. I've wanted to fuck Jacob Black since I was like, two point five. But he does not crave my cave."

"You're joking. You guys have totally done it. Don't lie to me, you hussy!"

"No lie. He doesn't like me that way. Apparently."

"But he's like, super into you. He looks at you like..." She screwed her face up in concentration, trying to keep track of her sentence. "Like a cat looks at a patch of sun on the floor. And he's always touching you! You guys are like, joined at the body part!"

"Yeah, but not like that. Not the grown-up kind of touching. Watch the touching some time, you'll see what I mean."

"So what do you guys do when you disappear at night?"

"Run around the forest knocking things over." Jean raised one eyebrow. "It's a tradition! On the night of the...any moon, we have to go knock bushes over. In the forest."

"You're not making any sense."

"Neither are you," Leah said from behind my right shoulder. I lurched in surprise. I hadn't heard her coming. This weed was..._thorough_. "Is that pot?" Leah plopped down next to us and grabbed the pipe.

"Leah, maybe you can settle this." Dimly I realized what Jean was about to say, and shook my head frantically at her. Leah was attending assiduously to the repacking of the pipe, and luckily didn't notice. Neither did Jean.

"Hmm?"

"Jake and Carlie. Is that happening?" Jean asked, at which Leah snorted loudly. "I don't get that. What does that mean? Is a loogie 'yes' or 'no'?" Leah lit the bowl and took a hit, held it for thirty very long seconds, then coughed it out in a great show of bronchial gymnastics.

"No," she rasped when she could breathe again. "Definitely not."

"No way!" Jean squeaked. "They are, too! Or about to. 'V'you seen the way they look at each other?"

"Yes, and it's sickening," Leah growled. "But Jake is like a younger, stupider brother to me. I'd know."

"Um, I don't keep track of my brothers' lays."

"Believe me, I wish I didn't have to," sighed Leah. Jean pulled a face at me.

_I'll explain later_, I mouthed to her. I wouldn't, but she would forget to ask so it was okay.

Jake walked out of the forest and waved to us.

"Jacob!" yelled Jean. "We were just talking about you!"

"Nothing good, I hope," said Jacob. He collapsed full-length next to me, with his forearm laid against my stubbly knee. Inconspicuous, unless you knew to look for it. _Always touching._

"Hey, don't you ever put on a shirt?" Jean asked. "No, that wasn't what I was going to say. Hi, Seth!" Seth jogged over to us. The three of them must have just gotten off the same patrol. Seth's appearance-also shirtless and glistening-derailed Jean's train of thought, for which I was grateful. I had enough trouble around Jacob as it was. I didn't need him to know about it.


	10. Job Opportunity

**Thanks for reading, friends! Leave a review if you like something...or hate something...or to inform me of inconsistencies (thanks again, person who caught my oopsies in the previous chapter!)...or to tell me your stripper name. Mine's Minty Magee :O**

Time flew by faster now that I was with Jacob again. He was my best friend, still gorgeous and happy and charming beyond belief. And I managed not to dwell on my attraction to him-mostly. There was no point wasting all these perfectly good sexin' years on someone who didn't want me back. I started to date on a very limited basis. Jacob dated occasionally, too. We talked about our dates together, because we talked about everything together. But neither of us wanted anything serious. I at least was just looking for temporary fuck buddies. Hunting down leeches took up too much time to be easily explained to someone who didn't know the lore. I couldn't tell an outsider about the wolves, and I wasn't about to shit where I ate, so I ended up with townies and friends-of-friends whose expectations were as low as mine.

I kept in touch with Jean, and with every passing summer we lamented that a road trip was out of the question. But next year, next year, maybe... Until one day, six years after I'd left St. John's, when Jean called me with news.

"So, remember Will, right?"

"Duh've course. How's he doing?"

"Oh, he's good. And I'm good. In fact, he asked me if I want to be good together for the rest of our lives." It took me a second to unravel this news. 'Can you come? I was hoping you might want to be a bridesmaid...you know, if you can make it."

"Oh my god, Jean, oh my god! Of _course_? I'll come now! I can help you do everything!"

So I told Leah I was taking some time off. It was a sign of how things had changed since I first returned to Forks that Leah had no snide comment. She just leered toothily and told me to enjoy the bachelorette party.

I very quietly broke up with my current boyfriend-a sweetly hapless med student who took it in stride-and spent a day in the city with Alice, picking out clothes for the trip.

I didn't ask Jacob to come. I knew he couldn't take so much time off from the pack, of course, but there was a secondary reason: Jonathan would be at the wedding. Apart from wishing to avoid a confrontation or any unpleasantness, I wanted to see Jonathan again, and I wanted to see him away from Jacob. I had no illusions about rekindling a relationship; I had treated him heartlessly, and I didn't expect even to talk to him or ask for his forgiveness. But I had to see him, if only to remember what it felt like to be a human girl in love.

* * *

Jean and I hadn't seen each other in four years, not since she spent the summer in Forks. We had kept up with email, but it wasn't the same. I told my family I'd be gone for the whole summer; I wanted as much time with my friend as I could get, and besides, I missed St. John's.

Our meeting was just like it had been four years before. We shrieked and hugged and jumped around while Jean's fiance stood nervously behind her.

"My god you look good!" I squealed. Jean had filled out considerably and the curves settled picturesquely around her hips and breasts. She was glowing and pleased, quite proud of her catch.

"You don't look too bad yourself," she said admiringly. I had worried for a while that I would freeze at seventeen like my father, and I would have to watch all my friends age without me. But I seemed to be progressing along a fairly normal path of physical maturation, a dead ringer for a co-ed in her early twenties. I was a hot, young bridesmaid with a freakishly cool night job. The world was my oyster.

* * *

Jean's had only one hissy fit, and threatened to elope only four times, before the big day. She picked out baby-blue floor-length satin dresses for me and the three others-standard bridesmaid fare, really, but everyone looked pretty because everyone was happy. She was glowing. Will, the groom, looked like the cat that caught the canary.

Jonathan was there, sitting in a back row with a very pretty blonde. I tried not to stare but he drew my eyes and I thought about the three years when we'd been everything to each other-or nearly. Edward had wanted me to enjoy those years, to take advantage of them, and I had, insofar as I was able, but...

I wished there were some way, now, to tell Jonathan what he meant to me. At the time, when I was being separated from Jacob by force, it was only natural that my body should rebel. Stupid Edward: he liked to impose choices on other people and who could help but try to thwart him? But he wasn't here now; I was here of my own volition. The magnetic longing for Jacob wasn't exactly gone, but it was well blanketed under all the reasons and desires and hopes that had brought me out here in the first place.

I sneaked another look at Jonathan. He was holding hands with the blonde, with his eyes glued to the happy couple at the altar. She looked happy; well, of course she did. He looked determined. I felt acutely that it shouldn't have ended the way it did. The imprint was so _obvious_; it must have hurt him in every way imaginable to see it so vividly manifested. But the imprint wasn't everything. I wished I'd known that then.

He and the blonde danced a few times at the reception, but left before I could get close enough to say hello. I didn't have a date, myself, but I danced several times with a groomsman two inches shorter than me. He was handsome and funny and we flirted and drank champagne and I briefly considered going home with him, but Jonathan's face was still in the background of my mind and I couldn't quite do it.

_Pathetic Renesmee. Always wanting what you don't have_. Was I any different from Bella?

* * *

Having spent the last six years tracking down and killing leeches, I now saw St. John's with new eyes. I was seeing signs _everywhere_. The most telling was the news I heard-in back corners, behind bars, on the last page of the papers-of sex workers disappearing at a rate unusual even for that notoriously ill-documented trade. Mostly strippers, occasionally also call girls and escorts.

After the wedding, I called Jacob and told him I was going to stay in St. John's for a while.

"How come?" he asked me warily.

"I think there's a leech making hay around here. I want to check it out."

"Want me to come?"

I briefly considered it-that irresistible pull was urging me to say yes, yes, yes. But something held me back. I wanted to do something on my own, something that was just for me. No Edward here, cutting deals. No Leah to schedule me. No Jake, with all the power over me that the imprint gave him.

"No," I said. "I think I can do this. I at least want to track it on my own. If it's more than one, maybe you can send backup."

I started visiting every strip joint in town. The classy ones, the dive bars, the ones buried in the middle of industrial parks. My favorites were the mid-level strip-joints: not sleazy, but with no pretension, either. The girls were mostly co-eds and college graduates like me who couldn't find anything to do with their liberal arts degrees, or cheerful dropouts who found their bodies more lucrative than diplomas. It seemed that these were also the favored haunts of bloodsuckers. I never scented a leech around the upscale strip joints, or in the rural places where the floors never got mopped and the strippers had as many children as teeth. But there were three or four strip bars around St. John's where I could distinctly smell human-eater. In most it was old and stale; I judged it to be at least three months old, no more than a hint.

But one place was absolutely rank with it; the stink saturated even the cement floor. It smelled like a leech had been living here, and when I did a little research, I found the place had lost four different dancers in the last two months. So this was where I spent most of my evenings. For some reason, a leech or a group of leeches had decided to make Jezebelles their hunting-ground. I hoped it was only one. I didn't think I could take on more than that and be sure of victory. But a lone hunter who preyed among the young, the beautiful and the desperate might be outwitted.

I didn't want to be noticed, but I didn't want to be kicked out either. So I brought along plenty of ones and fives and twenties, and I wore well-fitted but not overly revealing outfits, and I bought private dances every hour. It was important to keep the performers on my side. I needed information from them. The first few nights at Jezebelles, I didn't try to ask the dancers anything directly. I pretended I was just there for a good time. I figured out who had been there the longest, who was chatty or taciturn, who got the biggest tips. I needed to learn what kind of place this was.

After about a week of this, one of the dancers, a wiry black bike-messenger type who went by the handle "Queen Bitch", asked what a nice girl like me was doing in a strip club every night. She asked me sexily, of course, because she did everything sexily. I had bought several private dances from her, partly because she had been around longer than most of the others and partly because I liked the cut of her jib. She had a no-nonsense attitude that came through even when she was nakedly gyrating on my groin. Her armpits and labia were fuzzy and she had enough interesting tattoos to illustrate a Shel Silverstein anthology. She always got right to the point.

"Are you a lesbo?" she asked me in her sultry voice, then pulled my face out of her boobs so I could answer.

"I'm not sure," I said flirtily. "I might try it on for size."

"Are you looking for a job? I could put in a good word. You seem like an alright bitch." The idea had merit. If I was a co-worker the girls might be more inclined to be frank with me. Of course, if they saw me as competition...

"Maybe...How are the hours?"

Queen Bitch laughed. "They're however you want them to be. If you're good, you can pick and choose. Are you good?" The timer buzzed, indicating the end of her dance. She immediately stood up and started pulling her thong back on.

"I'm not sure," I admitted. "I don't know how sexy I am..."

"Well, my shift ends in an hour. Why don't I introduce you to the manager after that? You can show her what you're good at and see if you're interested."

"Gosh, if you wouldn't mind..."

"_Gosh_, it's no trouble," she said, a half-mocking smile turning up one side of her mouth.

So I hung out for a while and, true to her word, Queen Bitch brought me to the manager who, against all expectation, was a woman. Middle-aged, wrinkled as a walnut, with bleached-blonde hair and a smoker's voice, she introduced herself as Blair.

"So you want to be a stripper, huh?" She glanced over me appraisingly. "You've got the body for it, and your face is all right. You should know, honey, that being fit and pretty is the least of what a stripper does. Do you know how to dance?"

"Sure! I know the Charleston," I quipped.

"Funny," she said dryly. "Okay, the bar's closed, why don't you hop on up there and we'll see what you can do. What kinda undies you wearin'? Never mind, just give us a tease and we'll see in a minute." Queen Bitch gave me a saucy smile and settled herself down to watch.

A song came on that was neither fast nor slow. I didn't recognize it, but it sounded vaguely country-esque. I stepped to the center of the stage and started swaying in a circle, feeling out the rhythm of the music. The song started to build and I started to get creative. I was wearing a wrap dress which I slowly began to unwrap. I untied it so my front was exposed. I was wearing what Rosalie would call "Come-and-git-it" underwear, completely sheer chiffon bra and thong in a poisonous green color. My swaying became more pronounced until finally, I was bent over completely backward, exerting all of my antichrist powers to keep my balance, and the dress slid from my shoulders to the floor. I placed my hands on the floor and did a slow backwards handstand that eventually placed me right-side-up again. I didn't really know what to do with the pole, which was still streaked with antiseptic spray, so I just hooked one leg around it and slid down it to the floor and back up again. The song was winding up, so I wriggled as sexily as I could out of my bra and dangled it from one finger as the last chords dies down.

I tried to look as composed as possible while awaiting Blair's judgment. She tilted her head to one side.

"I guess you can start daytimes," she said. "Lauren'll explain about fees and tips." Queen Bitch waved her fingers at me cheekily. "You can come in on Tuesday to start. Three o'clock to eight. I want you here at two-thirty to fill out paperwork. Bring photo ID and social security so we can make copies. And now I—" she stubbed out her cigarette aggressively—"am going to bed."

I couldn't help but be struck by how similar all this was to that time when Leah first started to let me run with the pack. Very different duties-but then, I was still only here to kill leeches, so what was the difference?

* * *

I told Jacob all about it when we talked on the phone, as we did every night.

"I got a summer job," I said cautiously.

"Why? Do you really need the money? I'd think Nedward would have that all sewn up."

"I don't really like to take money from him. I mean, I had an allowance before, and I sort of cheated by asking Alice how to invest it, but..."

"I can understand that. So what's the job?"

"Stripping."

"Come again? It sounded like you just said 'stripping,' but I must have some fur in my ears because I know that's not happening."

"It is, actually. It's kind of fun. I seem to have some exhibitionist tendencies I didn't know about."

"Nessie, you're thirteen years old. What the fuck?"

"Don't be a tit, Jake. I haven't been thirteen since I was three. I've been sexually active for eight years. I have a college degree. What part of me is suddenly _too young _to be a stripper?" Jacob cleared his throat nervously.

"Well, I'm glad you're enjoying it," he said hesitantly. I swallowed past a sudden rage that he wasn't jealous, not even a _tiny little bit_, that I was showing people my boobs for money. What the hell was wrong with him? What the hell was wrong with _me_? "You don't get hassled?" he added. I paused for a second, to let the silliness of his question sink in. "Yeah, I guess you probably do all right. Is this...like, some sort of daddy-issues thing?"

I made a conscious effort to swing back into a casual mindset, despite Jacob's maddening resistance to my wiles. "You mean, have I taken up stripping as a way of rebelling against my overprotective and sexually-repressive father who never treated me right, while still seeking to earn validation as an adult woman by enacting the myth of the female as an object of male desire?"

"That liberal arts degree is really paying off, huh?"

"You betcha. Don't worry, Jake. Stripping is fun, the girls are nice, the money's okay and I don't get touched anywhere I don't want to be touched. It's better than retail and I get to dictate my own rules." My voice was flat with disappointment, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Well, that sounds fun. If werewolfing weren't a full-time gig, do you think I could make it as a stripper?"

An image of Jacob in heels and a frilly apron popped into my head and I burst out in surprised laughter, although he'd said nothing of cross-dressing.

"Yeah," I gasped between guffaws, "you'd make wicked tips."

* * *

I pieced together from various overheard conversations that the vanished strippers from Jezebelles had all been fairly new hires, mostly green in the world of stripping. They hadn't been around long enough to make many friends, and it had taken a while for anyone to notice they weren't showing up. The other girls didn't read anything mysterious into this, however. They just assumed the disappeared strippers had been found out by parents or boyfriends and quit.

I could tell that most of the dancers were leery of newcomers. They were largely friendly with each other, but they were all in competition for money on the floor, and there was a certain edge to their interactions. Queen Bitch had been around the longest; at twenty-six, she was starting to plan for retirement, or at least a move to a job that didn't require so much physical upkeep. She wasn't overwhelmingly friendly toward me, but she didn't forget that I had always tipped very well, and I wasn't a good enough dancer to be a threat. If we had known each other in a less bloodthirsty field, maybe we would have been good friends. As it was, she at least included me in backstage banter, which went far with the other girls.

One afternoon when I arrived for my shift, the smell of leech was overpowering. By the strength of it, he'd been here late last night. After my shift I would try to follow his scent to see where he went. Until then, I needed to gather information.

Casually I asked one of the other girls, a full-bodied blonde named Monaco, about the regulars.

"One of my favorites was here last night," she said. "He comes in every now and then and just pours money at us. You don't even have to work for it. Well, not hard. He never asks for private dances, but he tips us more than that just for talking to him."

"Yeah?" I asked, heart pounding. "What's he look like? Maybe I'll get lucky."

"He's fucking gorgeous is what," she said, rolling deodorant onto her groin. "He's like, a model or something. He always wears dark suits. I think he might be like, a spook or something." Then she laughed at the absurdity of her statement-as if anyone so important would ever come _here_. "Tall, buff, black hair. He looks like that guy who was in Mad Men. And he doesn't even carry bills smaller than fifties."

"When does he usually come?"

"Late," she said. "After midnight, usually."

After that I did my best to get late shifts, and when I had early ones or days off, I hung around outside or just sat at the bar late into the night, sipping glasses of cranberry juice and sprite, chatting with the bartender. I tried to track the scent but it led to a river and I lost it. I would just have to wait to bump into him.

And finally, after three weeks, I found my zombie.

* * *

He came in near the end of my shift. I smelled him before I saw him, and Monaco hadn't exaggerated: even for a vampire, he was _foxy_. He appeared to be in his early thirties, with shiny black hair sprinkled moderately with gray that he parted neatly on one side. His eyes were garnet-colored-not vibrant, but not black either. He probably had another solid month before his eyes turned black and his thirst forced him to feed, assuming he didn't do anything too athletic before then. But then again, plenty of vampires didn't wait till they were black-eyed-hungry before feeding. Nomads, with hunting the only thing to amuse them, might feed every week, indiscriminate of their victims. It was the cultured vampires, the sophisticated ones who made their kills an art, who waited long between feeds. If I had my guess, this guy was one of those. He wouldn't drink the blood of any old human. He was willing to wait for just the right morsel.

He was sitting in a dark corner with those heavy lids half-covering his red eyes, and if I hadn't had supernatural eyesight I would have mistaken them for hazel. I slithered up behind him and draped my arms around his shoulders. He inhaled and stiffened in surprise.

"What are you doing all alone, handsome?" I asked him, pitching my voice a tone sultrier than usual.

Without turning to look at me, he reached up and stroked the soft skin of my forearm and said, "I thought I had met all the dancers, but your perfume is unknown to me."

"Oh, no," I said, and swirled around him to perch in his lap, "I'm new." His human-blood smell was strong and offensive, but underneath it I could detect the scent that humans got from him: intoxicating, luscious, virile. I tried to focus on that instead of the syrupy overtones. "You must have a very good sense of smell, to recognize someone by her perfume."

"Oh, I'm something of a connoisseur," he breathed. "Yours is...like nothing I've encountered." His hands had stayed at his sides this whole time; in this club, touching was allowed, but only with individual permission. I reached down, took his hand, and brought it slowly to my throat. As one mesmerized, he began to run his fingers slowly down from my jaw to my collarbone. He was breathing so deeply and slowly that if he'd been human he would have needed a paper bag soon.

I had spent my weeks here establishing a vintage persona. Tonight I was wearing a pair of green chiffon French knickers and a green silk bra that displayed every topographical detail of my breasts. My knickers had garters that held up black silk stockings, and my shoes were vintage stilettos that Alice had picked up somewhere.

"You seem out of place among these neon delights," he said. "May I know your name?" He had the cultured and eloquent tones that I heard from some of the leeches that lived in settlements. The Denalis and the Volturi and several other covens I knew of possessed it: inflection, perfected. His accent was flawless Queen's English, but I suspected from the slightly Asiatic slant to his eyes and the translucent umber of his skin that he had learned another language first.

"Call me Atalanta. How about you?"

"You've chosen a fine name, Atalanta," he said and leaned forward infinitesimally. "Please, call me Amoun."

"Well then, thank you Amoun, but I didn't choose it. It was given to me." Amoun leaned back and laughed luxuriantly.

"Surely not! Your parents wished an exotic life for you, to name you so."

"Oh, my parents didn't give me this name."

"A co-worker, perhaps? One fond of the classics?"

"A boy, actually. A long time ago. And I must say, it suited me so well I was inclined to keep it."

"Raised by wolves, then? Abandoned in the woods? Or was it the part about the golden apple you found so apt?" Amoun glanced down at my chest as he said this last part.

"In a way. I love the woods. I love their isolation. I love to get lost in them."

"What a poetic thought." Amoun's hands strayed lower, down across my sternum. With the barest pressure of one fingertip, he traced around the underside of my bra. "You must forgive me for what I am about to ask."

"That depends on what you say."

"So coy. I suppose you must be. Would you take mercy on me and tell me when you will be here again?"

"I don't see what mercy has to do with it, Amoun."

"Oh, but you do. You strike me as too intelligent to be blind to the effect you have." I shifted a little and felt his erection against my thigh.

"I see," I said laughingly. "Well, I'm on again Thursday night. I hope you can bear the wait."

"Two nights," he groaned. "I suppose I must."

I hopped off his lap and looked down to see him slide five crisp hundred-dollar bills into the waistline of my panties.

"Thank you, Amoun," I said sweetly, and danced away backstage.

I hurried through my dressing, and when I came back out he was gone. I followed his scent easily and tracked him all night, careful always to keep downwind, but he never even approached any humans. I was relieved. I doubted I could best him in a fair fight. I had to do this right; my only chance was to outsmart him, to trick him, to balance the odds.

And I had a strong hunch that he wouldn't kill anyone immediately. I thought I could guess who his next target would be.

* * *

I called Jacob to tell him the time had come.

"I found him," I said a little breathlessly. "He's coming to see me again on Thursday night."

"Ness, I don't like this. I don't think you should do this alone. I want to come out there."

"You know you can't leave the pack."

"I left them for a week to come to your graduation and they were fine. I'm serious about this. You can't try to take on a leech all alone. They fight dirty. You need backups."

"Okay, okay, I'm not trying to be a hero. Can you send someone?"

"Fuck that, I'm coming out there myself. I'll be on a plane tomorrow."

"Chill out, Jake," I said, "Just...get here when you get here. I'll still be here. Do you need me to wire money? I know last-minute flights are-"

"No, I've got it. Don't worry. I'll be there soon. Just...don't do anything without me."

"I'll do my best."

"See you soon, Stinker. Love you."

"Love you back, Dogbreath."


	11. Accomplishment

**Thanks for reading about the hijinks of Nessie, the Boringest Stripper!**

* * *

I prepared with exceptional care for my Thursday evening shift. Why shouldn't I be a little excited? Oh, partly it was the adrenaline rush that always came with a hunt: I felt it every time, with the wolves. But there was something more. I was excited to see Amoun, handsome, elegant, undoubtedly capable. And I fully intended to excite him as well.

I wore dainty, pale-pink organza panties with pin-tucks across the ass, and a sheer brazier with seamed cups and pintucks down the front. Over the panties went an insubstantial, lacy garter that held up white silk stockings. Over the stockings, a pair of high-heeled gold kid pumps. Over my underwear I wore an elaborately draped, floor-length gown made of a crinkly white linen trimmed with gold embroidery in the Greek key motif. Atalanta had been a princess, practically a goddess. No clear heels or glow-in-the-dark bikinis for her.

I had selected the music for my floor routine very carefully. It was a throbbing, drum-driven Turkish dance song. Not particularly like the usual fare of pop and rock, but not out of place in a strip-club, either. Few of the girls did proper stripteases for their sets. Most of them came out already in their vibrantly-colored Lycra underwear and six-inch heels, with perhaps a bit of fishnet to complete the look; it took them only a few moves to get completely naked, and the rest of their sets consisted of gyrating and spreading their legs. But then, this was a real job for them: they wanted to extract money from their clients, and most of the clientele responded to fishnet. I wasn't here to make money. I was here to attract a soulless, blood-sucking monster and arouse his every appetite before murdering him ruthlessly.

I smelled him from backstage. I knew he would be looking for me: according to the girls, he rarely came around more than once a month. Twice in three nights was unheard of.

"You made an impression on him, didn't you?" Monaco asked me. She was smiling, but probably not well-pleased at the influence I had over her favorite high-rolling client. "He couldn't keep his hands off you. He never touches the rest of us, just sits there and talks. What's your secret?"

"Oh," I said breezily, "He thinks I smell good. I think he's kind of weird, though. Like, what is the deal with his accent? He talks like a butler."

"_You_ talk like a butler." Monaco flounced away. I didn't have time to worry about this. If she was pissed, she was pissed. She couldn't know how much danger she was in.

I heard the opening strains of my song and walked balletically to the center of the stage. I kept my posture perfect and erect, then, as the music swelled, I began to move my hips. Slowly, slowly: too slowly for the guys at the tip rail, whose attentions started to wander. But from the corner of my eye I saw Amoun, in his dark corner, with his unblinking eyes trained on me. I began to revolve on the spot, my hips undulating in time to the music, and as I turned, I unwrapped my complicated gown. Faster and faster, the long swath of fabric fell away to puddle at my feet: the dress shortened, then the shoulders fell away, and finally the whole thing lay in a heap. Out of my restraints, I moved more freely. The music really picked up now, and I leapt to the top of the pole and clung to it with my thighs and feet, then arched my back until I was hanging upside down. I gripped the midsection of the pole in my hands and did a slow, agonizing flip backward, releasing my legs and finally landing with my feet on the ground. With that, the music ended. The whole thing had taken no more than five minutes, and at the end of my dance I was still wearing more underwear than most girls started with. A few dollar bills were scattered on the stage, but practically no one was watching me anymore.

Just Amoun, his eyes glittering ominously at me from his corner.

I vacated the stage and noted with satisfaction that Queen Bitch was out next. Her song, a fast one with a heavy bassline, pulled the men to the front of the stage again. No one was interested in the girl with the slow routine, and Queen Bitch would benefit from the clients' renewed interest in the proceedings. And I could be free to talk to Amoun.

I freshened up, straightened the seams in my stockings. I stood in front of the mirror backstage and listened to the sounds of merriment happening on the other side of the door.

"You can do this," I told my reflection. "You have to do this. Do it right. You won't get a second chance."

* * *

Amoun was waiting for me. He had a glass of whiskey that sat untouched by his elbow. His half-Windsor knot was perfect; no strand of black hair was out of place. I glided languorously to his corner and stood straight in front of him, my hands at my sides.

"Your performance was enchanting, my dear," he said smoothly.

"Thank you. I don't suppose it was to popular taste, but it is good to know one's hard work is appreciated."

"It suited you. I thought I was seeing Galatea, brought to life."

"You do like Greek mythology, don't you, Amoun?"

"Ordinarily no, but you have rather a way of bringing it to mind." His eyes drifted to my breasts, which were plainly displayed through my insubstantial undergarments.

"I think you like me," I said.

"I confess to a certain amount of curiosity. Your manner is not what I've come to expect in such places as these. Not that I would dream of denigrating these fair demoiselles-" he gestured to the other girls who wandered and flirted and made polyester love to the customers "-but I would willingly hear your story."

"Oh, you wouldn't find my story at all interesting," I laughed. "Perfectly mundane."

"I am sure your life is as mundane as mine."

"In that case, what do you say to a trade? You tell me something, I'll tell you something." Amoun showed his pleasure at my suggestion with a hundred-dollar bill. I sat beside him and faced him expectantly.

"I suppose I must start," he said laughingly.

"If you don't mind."

"I was born long ago. Your turn."

"So frugal! You have none of the art of storytelling at all, darling. How long ago? Where?"

"You wouldn't believe me."

"Then lie." Amoun laughed heartily at this.

"Very well. I was born in the late nineties in Cairo."

"Indeed? You look far too mature to be a child of the Nineties."

"I meant the seventeen-nineties."

I threw my head back and laughed lustily. Amoun eyed my throat with unconcealed fascination. "Very well. I suppose I asked for that." So he was fairly old, obviously old enough to know how to survive. Younger than Carlisle, but two hundred years of experience were an imposing thought compared to my thirteen. Unless he really _had _lied, but I thought that unlikely. Some vampires really got off on making open reference to their extraordinary secret, knowing full well that no one would ever believe the truth. I heard my parents do it all the time around humans.

"Your turn, Galatea."

"Oh, all right." I smoothed his hair gently back from his temples. Quickly he caught my wrist in his hand and held it to his lips. "But you already know my story. You've told it to me yourself. Raised by wolves, duped by my father, seduced by a golden apple of Aphrodite." I tried to match his flowery manner of speaking. Frankly I found it irritating but he responded well. If he'd been human I would be hearing all the blood rushing to his penis right about now.

"You are outside of my experience, and that is saying something, as I have met a great many beautiful women in my time. I cannot believe you are quite human, Galatea."

"No?" I prompted. "Then what am I?"

"A sylph," he said after some thought. "A pisky. A priestess of Isis. Nothing so miserably prosaic as human."

"No," I agreed, and leaned in so close that my lips brushed his ear. "But then," I breathed, "Who here is?" He was utterly frozen, forgetting all the business of pretend humanity. "This is the demimonde, Amoun. You won't find humans here. We are statues brought to life."

"I want to see you away from this place," he said finally. "Can this be done?"

'What did you have in mind?"

"I have a little pied-à-terre near Deadman's Bay."

"I didn't think anyone lived down there."

"They really don't. I keep a rather small establishment there for relief from the pressures of the city."

"I see. I am strongly advised by my manager against seeing clients outside of the club. She seems to think it could be dangerous. Do I have anything to fear from you, Amoun?"

"Perhaps. You will have to judge for yourself."

I stood swiftly. "That is not the way to gain a girl's confidence. I have to think about it."

"How long does one need to make such a decision? I believe you know very well what there is between us." There was no use in denying it, and so I didn't; although perhaps he knew even less than I what might happen. I suspected that Amoun, while attracted and confused by my scent, and intrigued by my oblique hints that I knew what he was, had not yet concluded that I was a half-human, half-vampire-although I must never underestimate him. Perhaps he was simply playing his hand more closely than I was.

I must keep him from knowing my strength. Therein lay my only chance-to take him unaware. I had already given away too much by my overly athletic performance on the stage tonight; few people knew just how much strength and control might be needed to support one's entire weight through one's legs on a slim pole like that, but Amoun could be trusted to guess. It had been a calculated risk, however: I wanted him to be so obsessed with me, with my uniqueness, that he lost interest in feeding on an ordinary human.

"Yes, I think I will probably say yes in the end," I said with that tinkling laugh I had picked up from Alice. "But you'll have to let me finish my shift tonight. I can't afford to cut out early."

"I will provide more for you than you can ever dream of earning here," he said. His eyes were darker than they had been last time I saw him-only natural, but alarming as well. I wanted him to think he could take his time with me, which he was unlikely to do if he was particularly hungry.

"I have no way of knowing if you mean that." I slid out of his grasp and backstage. I was feeling shaken: this was moving so fast. Something would be tonight. Sex, possibly. A death, almost certainly. But whose? I was determined it should be his, and he was no doubt equally determined to enjoy the taste of my strange blood.

The insistent buzzing of my phone shook me out of my thoughts. I saw that I had missed seven calls, all from Jacob. An eighth call was demanding attention.

"Hello." Amazing, really, how unruffled my voice could be, but Jacob would never be fooled.

"What the hell are you doing, Ness?" As always, straight to the point.

"What do you mean?"

"Where are you? I feel all wrong. Something's going on over there, I can tell, I've been feeling it all night. What the hell are you getting up to?"

"Where are you?"

"Layover in Halifax, flight leaves in twenty minutes. I swear to god, you had better not be missing any fluids when I get to you or-"

"I have to go now, Jake."

"Ness, wait, where-"

"Deadman's Bay. Find it on a map and then run there, it'll be fastest. I don't know where-you'll have to find me."

"Deadman's Bay? Seriously?"

"Amoun has a sense of humor."

"So the leech has a name."

"I'm going to do this, Jake. He's killed at least half a dozen girls here, probably way more."

"Can't you wait for me to-"

"Just get here fast, Jake. I love you so."

"Ness, you don't have to rush into this. Just-my flight is boarding, it's a really short flight, we can do this together."

"I can't wait to see you Jake." My heart was pounding hard from the mix of fear and exhilaration. "I love you more than anything and anyone. At the end of this, you'd better..." I thought about all the things I wanted from him and bit my tongue.

"What? Better what? Why can't you just _wait_?"

"I love you." I pressed 'End' and breathed as deeply as my trembling ribcage would allow. He was right. Why was I doing this alone? Jacob would be here soon, probably within two hours. I could wait for him to find me, and we could do it together. Hell, I wasn't even all that confident that I _would _be able to get it done without Jacob's help. He might show up to find me still fighting Amoun, maybe losing, maybe dead.

I was just being reckless. But I thought about Jacob's pretty black eyes, eyes that saw me and loved me and accepted me but didn't _desire _me, and I thought that maybe caution was overrated anyway.

I splashed water on my face, touched up my makeup, and clocked out. Then I peeled off my shoes, my silk stockings, my see-through bra and panties. I replaced them with an unassuming set of white underwear, a vintage floral shirt dress and a simple pair of sandals. I packed my purse, said good night to Queen Bitch, and went out to meet my killer.

* * *

"So this is what the nymph wears when she is alone," he greeted me.

"But I'm not alone. You're here."

"Of course. Not alone-but not on the clock either," he amended.

I stood on tippy-toes to kiss his cheek-and to give him a strong whiff of my adrenaline-spiked, flushed skin. "Where are we going and how are we getting there?" I asked.

Amun conducted me to a very shiny, very fast sports car. I had never known a nomad to own a car. But I had never really thought Amoun was a nomad.

"I hope you enjoy speed," he said.

"You have no idea," I responded, and he accelerated shamelessly.

I spent the whole ride pressed up against him: my scent in his nostrils, my hand in his lap.

* * *

His house was small and obviously served just one purpose. The only rooms that looked like they had ever been used were the living room and the bedroom. The living room contained an expensively-stocked bar. Amoun poured me a strong drink and I downed it without hesitation, which caused the corners of his lips to turn up in a satisfied smile. I didn't mention that with my metabolism it was difficult to get me properly drunk. I smiled back at him warmly and slammed the glass back on the table.

Amoun placed his arms around me like a steel cage. I pretended he was Jonathan, and that I needed to restrain myself. I pretended to be human. I pretended to be weak.

He stooped to sniff at the nape of my neck.

"Divine," he said softly. "You truly are a goddess. Will you let me treat you as one?"

"Okay," I said, making a visible effort to focus on his face. I thought he might have put something in my drink, but I wasn't sure. I'd had a guy roofie me once when I had wandered into the wrong party in college: he had regretted it much more than I did. All I got was a very slightly tingly sensation in my extremities that had no effect whatsoever on my reflexes. He got fourteen stitches and a testical-retrieval operation. Crude and predictable, perhaps, but nevertheless a memorable warning against further attempts at date-rape.

"Hey," I said blurrily, "You're not-do you have protection?"

"Yes, of course," he said soothingly, as he led me to the couch and lay me down oh-so-gently. He began to unbutton my dress while my mind raced. How was I going to do this? I had to get him before he got me, and I didn't know how far he usually went with his victims before he lost control and bit them. I knew some vampires had sex with humans-if my uptight father could bring himself to do it there was a good chance someone like Amoun made it a habit.

I wasn't afraid of his venom; Carlisle and I had conducted some tests years ago to find out whether vampire venom did anything to me, and although I didn't possess any of my own it couldn't seem to make any headway in my system. But one taste of my rather unusual blood would be enough to put Amoun on his guard.

He seemed to be working up to it now. He was easing my panties down over my knees, positioning himself between them, inhaling deeply.

"What a marvel you are," he said, "What a wonder." Gently he lifted my legs and draped them over his own shoulders, then kissed a trail down the inside of my thigh toward my crotch.

"Oh, Amoun," I cried out, "You're so cold!" It wasn't bothersome, really, not to me. But to a human it would be, and I had to play the part. His kisses felt nice: measured, delicate, teasing. Just the sort of thing I would like if they didn't come from a demonic hell-spawn I would be killing momentarily.

"I have poor circulation," he said. "Does it bother you, sweet one?"

"No, it's 'kay," I said, settling down into the couch cushions. I began to insinuate my hands into his hair, mussing it and tugging it gently, and then my hands strayed toward his neck as his lips drifted toward my slit. I pressed my legs firmly against his shoulders, squeezing in time to his kisses and trying to gain leverage without arousing his suspicion.

"Oh, Amoun, oh my god, that's-this is so amazing, you're..." His lips closed around my inner labia and his tongue broke through to lap at my cunt. My voice grew higher in pitch and I stroked his neck and jaw frantically.

"Oh god, Amoun-remember when you said, like, I wasn't, like, a human?" I panted and huffed my way laboriously through the words, like I was struggling to remain coherent.

"Mm hmm," hummed Amoun without looking up. I felt his lips part a tiny bit, the infinitesimal scrape of one shard-edged tooth.

"You were right," I said in my normal voice, and yanked hard on his skull while pressing my legs down against his shoulders. His head came away with a graphic crunching scrape, and the look on his face as I brought it up to mine was pure loveliness.

* * *

Jacob exploded through the door ten minutes after that, his red fur bristling and a furious snarl rippling through his lips. He jumped straight for me and I sidestepped and pushed, so that he rolled away from me instead.

"_Phase_, goddammit!" I hollered at him. "Phase your dumb ass _NOW_!" I grabbed the heaviest object I could find and hurled it at his head. It turned out to be a crystal wine decanter, which smashed gloriously against his face. A low _woof_was surprised out of him and he shook his head, spraying wine and blood everywhere.

Jacob crouched there a moment longer, sweeping the room with his eyes, then finally he shrunk in on himself and resumed his human form. I could have laughed that this was the first time I had ever seen Jacob fully nude. I could have laughed, but I didn't, because if I laughed I would cry.

"Where is it? Where is it?" Jacob demanded. I pointed behind him. Jacob turned, his junk swinging in silhouette, to face the fireplace, where the remains of a ribcage were just becoming too charred to recognize.

"I saved the head," I said. "I thought you'd want to see it before it went on the pyre."

Jacob strode to the hearth, where I had laid the head. It grimaced and showed its teeth at us. The fury in Amoun's face was so perfectly formed that I almost recoiled.

"Shame on you," I said to the head. "Shame on you."

"What the hell happened here?" Jacob asked. I hesitated. It should have been at least somewhat obvious: I was still in my underwear, and Jacob had clearly felt _something _significant, even if he didn't know what it meant. The link between us wasn't explicit, but it was strong.

"How much do you love me?" I asked Jacob nervously.

"Lots," he said automatically, then, a little more cautiously, "Why?" I reached out, placed two fingers against his hard-muscled sternum, and showed him the memory of Amoun's face at my groin, his head splitting away from his body in my hands.

Jacob leapt back as if I'd cut him. He stared at me with his mouth slightly parted. I could read nothing in his black eyes. The fire jumped and fell, jumped and fell, and I divined sinister omens in every shadow that prowled across his face.

Oh god, he was going to kill me. I had crossed a line. What on earth had possessed me to tell him?

Just as I was about to turn tail and run, that smile, that clarion smile, that _Jacob _smile swept across his face. Against that smile what shadow stood a chance?

"Oh, _Jake_!" I half-sobbed, and stumbled forward, tripping into Jacob's massive arms. I felt my feet leave the floor.

"You just killed your first leech. I can't fucking believe this. You are such a badass son of a fuck, I can't even, oh my god. Oh my god, Ness! Leah's going to go apeshit! Dude, can I tell her right away?"

"_No_!" I shouted, louder than I meant to. "She may possibly kill me for...the way in which I disarmed this particular mosquito. I mean, doesn't that...does that bother you?"

Jacob pulled back. He suddenly noticed he was naked and grabbed frantically for something to cover his junk. I sighed as the remains of my dress were wrapped around Jacob's waist. I'd never been so jealous of an article of clothing.

"It's a little late for that _now_, Jake. I figured out long ago that you've got a penis."

"Well, just...pretend you didn't see that."

"Honestly, I'm astonished I never saw it before today. How on earth have you been hiding that thing?" Jacob burst into surprised chuckles.

"Where there's a will, there's a way," he said. "So, about this leech... Does it bother _you_?"

"I don't know. Jake, I was...legitimately attracted to this one. I always planned on getting him in bed...well, couch." Jacob snorted. "I didn't know how else I was going to get his head off." Jacob waggled his eyebrows cheekily and I punched him in the nipple.

"Ow!"

"I'm serious! I mean, I always knew I was going to waste him, I just...I didn't exactly mind having to seduce him. Is that terrible?"

"Ness," Jacob said very seriously, "I have spent a long time learning the hard way that I don't get to make that choice for other people."

"You're talking about Bella," I said, and some resentment must have leaked into my voice because Jacob winced.

"Yeah, I am," he said. "I'm sorry, but it's true. I despised Edward for so long, and I was hating him for all the wrong reasons. I hated him because he got to have her and I couldn't, and I was pissed because she wanted him and not me." I hated hearing Jacob talk like this; he almost never brought it up, because it had long since ceased to be relevant. But I had to admit to a certain morbid fascination.

"But I think I've matured since then. Now I just hate him for being a self-satisfied, uninteresting, pansy-assed prick. He's like a character in a book, if you took away the character."

I had to smile. He knew Edward too well.

"You know, I used to be a real dick. I think about some of the things I said...things I did...I was confused and blundering and I'm pretty sure my testosterone levels would have been fatal in anyone else. I'm really ashamed of some of the shit I pulled back then."

"You're not a dick, Jake."

"Yeah, not anymore, but only by force of will. I swore to myself when I met you that I would never give you a reason to hate me or fear me or be ashamed of me."

"I could never hate you," I said-truthfully enough.

"What, because the imprint won't allow it? I don't want you to be _forced _to love me. I want to be worthy of you." The thought that Jacob might ever doubt his own worth had never even crossed my mind. He was one of the most confident people I'd ever known, and as far as I was concerned he was right to be so: _I'd_certainly never met his equal. "Where was I going with this?" he added, having trailed off into silence at the same time I did.

"You forgive me for being attracted to a leech."

"Balls, Nessie, what's to forgive? You're half-vampire yourself; they don't smell like funerals to you the way they do to us. I don't care who you're attracted to-" all right, that hurt a little "-all I care about is that you saw a problem and you solved it. He was killing people, and he won't kill anyone ever again. And that's because of you."

"Are you just being so nice about this because of the imprint?"

Jacob shrugged. "Actually, the imprint sort of made me crazy. I didn't know you were getting busy with a bloodsucker, but I knew something was happening and whatever it was made me want to break something big. I think...if it were up to the imprint, I would not be okay with this."

"So why are you?"

Jacob huffed all the air of of his lungs and scratched the back of his head. "Well, Ness, imprint or no imprint, I'm still me. You're still you. The imprint doesn't want me to accept that you just got head from a leech? Imprint can go fuck itself."

"Aw, Jake!" I climbed up his body and clung to him like a monkey, my head tucked under his chin.

"You do know what this means, though, don't you?" he said at last. I shook my head. "I'm going to have to ask for my Star Wars tapes back."

* * *

Riffling through Amoun's suit pockets I found a talisman. It was a small scarab brooch of what looked like lapis set in beaten gold. I held it up to the light.

"Check out the spoils," I said. "He was Egyptian, I think," I said. "Anyway, he looked like it, and with his name...although he could have been faking it."

"Nice," said Jacob, holding it delicately between two enormous fingers. "Ancient Egyptian?"

"Psh. Hardly. Turn it over."

"Christies?"

"Amoun, you pretentious tit," I said to the head on the hearth. It snarled at me.

"I heard the ancient Egyptians had jackal shapeshifters," Jacob said. "Hey, is that true?" He nudged the head with his toe and Amoun snapped his teeth at it. "Oh well," he said, kicking the head into the fire. "He would only have lied anyway."


	12. What To Do When There's Nothing To Do

**Hey y'all, thanks for reading! This is a slightly shorter-than-usual chapter because there was no other logical place to put the chapter break. Yell at me in a review!**

* * *

Leah never found out how I beheaded Amoun, because as Alpha of his pack Jacob was able to control which of his thoughts he shared with the other wolves. For this I was grateful.

But I still couldn't go back to Forks yet. I didn't know why; Elizabeth, Leah and Seth all called me at different times to say in their different ways that I was missed. The feeling was mutual. I missed the constancy of their mission. As far as I could tell Amoun had been the only vampire in St. John's, and now that he was gone what reason did I have to stay?

Jacob stayed with me for a few days more, sleeping on the couch in my studio apartment. I offered to let him share the bed, but he laughed like it was a joke. That must have been when I decided to stay in St. John's.

Jacob tried to argue me out of it.

"We could really use you," he said. "There are more leeches in Forks than here. And Leah's getting antsy. She wants her pack back together." _Aww_, Leah thought of me as part of the pack.

"What about you?"

"Don't be a moron, Nessie, I want you back more than anyone does." He hooked his arms under my armpits and lifted me till my feet were dangling a foot off the ground. "You're my little girl. What am I gonna do without you?"

"I'm really not a little girl anymore, Jake," I sighed.

"Well, you may have wasted your first leech and been a stripper and gotten a college degree, but to me you'll always be the girl with bloody fingernails and dirty knees." He tugged gently on a lock of my hair. "Always little Nessie, to me."

I laid my head on his shoulder, trying to breathe normally, trying to still the murk of sexual frustration that his words stirred up.

"I'll come back to you, Jake. You know I will always come back."

"I know. I just want you to come back now."

"Tough titties," I said, pushing myself out of his arms. His shoulders drooped, but he didn't say anything more about it, just picked up his one carry-on and kissed me on the forehead.

"Love you, Jake."

"Love you more."

"Loved you longer."

After he left, I spent an hour crying and throwing shoes at the wall. Then I showered and got ready for my next shift at Jezebelles.

* * *

None of the girls knew how close they had all been to death, and I didn't enlighten them, but I didn't quit, either. I didn't make a lot at this job, although I suppose if I'd wanted to I could have learned all the right moves. Queen Bitch accused me of being "too upright," whatever that meant. I could wriggle and writhe with the best of them, but nobody ever stuck around for my stage routine, which for most strippers was the real selling-point. As a result Blair started more and more to schedule me to work the floor only. I didn't really mind. It was fun talking to the customers. I played the "classy stripper" of the establishment, and I was good at sussing out the ones who wanted something a little different.

Jean was mildly horrified that this was my job.

"I never would have thought you'd have to do this for a living," she said.

"Maybe I like it. It's not just drug-addicted dropouts who strip, Jean."

"I'm sorry," she said and tried to backpedal. "It's just...not what I always thought you'd end up doing, you know? Is this what you saw for yourself at graduation?"

"Don't preach at me Jean." She blushed. "First of all, I haven't 'ended up' doing anything. I'm twenty-three. This isn't exactly the last job I'll ever hold. And second of all, don't knock it till you try it." Jean shuddered.

"Ugh, no thanks. All those men putting their hands on you...Besides, I always thought you were a feminist." She folded her arms, like this was some sort of death blow to my career as a stripper.

"You get used to it. Jean, I appreciate your concern, but being a stripper doesn't make me not a feminist. I can do both. I'm in control of my work. I'm monetizing my body and I'm doing it for myself, not for anybody else. And hon, I love you but I'm not going to listen to you lecture me about this."

"Fine, whatever," said Jean. "I just don't get it, that's all."

"There's nothing to get. It's fun. It's exciting. And I don't have to let anyone touch me if I don't want to. I could have done ballet, I guess, but I didn't. So I'm doing this instead. You can come see if you want."

"Maybe. Does your family know?"

"Well..."

"Does Jacob know?"

"Yeah." I shook my head ruefully. "He's annoyingly supportive. I would love it if he were like, jealous or at least uncomfortable with it, but he's just all, 'You should do what makes you happy.' It sucks."

"How does that suck? Two seconds ago you were bitching at me for not being supportive enough."

"Yeah, but I don't want _you _to put your dick in me, Jean. I don't want him to get pissy or protective, but it doesn't even affect him."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Yeah."

"He'll come around, though."

"I don't think so."

"Sure he will. Have you looked at your boobs lately?"

* * *

A month after Amoun's demise, I was beginning to rethink my idea of sticking around. I liked hanging out with Jean and the few other friends I could find from high school, but I had no purpose. I went cliff-diving all the time. The Cullens had sold their house when we moved, of course; it was now a very, very upscale B&B. I considered taking a room there but there didn't seem to be any point. During the day I went to the library and sat for hours reading. Often history books or anthologies of myth, but also hobby books. I started learning embroidery, a skill that Esme had tried to teach me years ago. I called Alice and Rosalie a lot. Rosalie and Emmett were still fighting the good fight in Forks, although they didn't see as much appeal in it without me around. I told Rosalie how I'd defeated Amoun and she teased me mercilessly about it for days.

I called Bella once or twice, but we didn't have anything to talk about. I didn't tell her I'd taken up stripping.

I didn't call Edward at all.

Alice thought it a crying shame that I didn't have my car with me. "How bout if I drive your car out to St. John's and we have some girl-time, then I can fly home."

"Wouldn't that be a huge bother?"

"Um, no? I love your car. And I miss you!"

Alice was very determined, and I missed both her and my car, and so it was agreed that she should drive out for a week's visit before returning to Sooke.

I took the whole week off so I didn't have to waste a moment of Alice time. We went shopping, of course. I showed her my sad attempts at embroidery. We went hunting and drove out to the boonies to wander through antique malls and buy oddities. Alice was excited when she found a "rhinestone" bracelet for forty bucks that was really diamond. It was anyone's guess how it had been mislabeled; usually antique retailers were very careful about the sort of thing. Alice, with her spectacularly fine-tuned eyes, knew at once what it was, and when she told the storekeeper he was flabbergasted.

"Take it to a jeweller. Those are real diamonds. Well, most of them. The one on the end is actually glass."

Later I asked her why she didn't just buy it without saying a word.

"That would be dishonest!" she exclaimed, a vision of innocence in her white lace sundress.

"Alice, you use your powers to rip off the stock market."

"I don't 'rip off' the stock market; I play by their own rules. Poor old Richard in there will be able to retire on that bracelet. I've just helped an old man!"

"If you gave all of your money to charity, you could help even more old men." Alice tilted her head to one side, like an interested kitten.

"Yes, I suppose I could do that," she said thoughtfully. "I can always make it back again. I wonder why that never occurred to me."

"Psh," I said. "You've been living with Edward too long, that's why."

"You can't blame everything on him, dear," she said primly.

* * *

Before Alice boarded her plane home, she presented me with a gift: she'd finished the embroidery pattern I had started. It was a tea-towel, and her embroidery was much better than mine.

"I did it while you were asleep," she said. Her smile was so happy that I couldn't do anything but smile back and hug her. It was beautiful hand-work, but it seemed to represent Alice's most troubling flaw: it never even occurred to her that I was embroidering not because I was in dire need of a tea-towel, but because I wanted to learn the skill. She thought she could just give me whatever I wanted, never suspecting that what I wanted was to provide for myself.

I would stay in St. John's until I finished my first sampler, I promised myself. Then, if I hadn't found a good reason to stay, I would go back.

* * *

"I thought I saw your car outside." His voice was low and level, and for a second I allowed myself to believe I had imagined it. Then I turned, and there he was.

Jonathan.

Alone, unless he'd come in with the rowdy group of bachelors now under the sway of Queen Bitch and Mesmerize.

For another split second, I considered how to respond, but my body took over before my mind could reach any conclusions, and my arms went around him for the tightest bear hug I could risk on a human. I felt his breath whoosh out of him.

"Jonathan."

"Atalanta, huh?"

"Oh. Yes. You were right, it does fit me. Most people don't get it, though. They think of the city."

"Where's...your family?" Jonathan asked carefully. He didn't seem overjoyed to be in conversation with me, but he wasn't angry, as far as I could tell. Just...cautious.

"In British Columbia. Alice came out to see me but she went back."

"So, you're a stripper now."

"Yeah. You like?" I spun in a circle so Jonathan could see.

"Please don't flirt with me," said Jonathan.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know I was."

"Yes, you did."

"Well, I get in the habit here...and what are you here for, if not to flirt?"

"My buddy Mike is having his bachelor party. He's over there taking that girl's garter off with his teeth." Jonathan pointed out a very excited-looking guy in a button-down.

"Charming."

"Don't be superior. You're the one who works here."

"I'm sorry. Is there a chance I will ever be able to say sorry enough times?"

"I don't know," said Jonathan, and a wisp of a smile blew across his face. "Try and see."

"Are you seeing anyone?"

"Does it matter?"

"It might. You don't have to tell me. I guess it's really none of my business."

"Well, I'm not."

"Me neither." Jonathan's face scrolled through several contortions before finally settling on disbelief.

"You're not with-"

"No."

"Then I feel sorry for him."

"Jonathan, I am so sorry I hurt you. I was confused and...well, there were a lot of extenuating circumstances that made things very complicated. But you didn't deserve to be treated that way. I'm so sorry."

"I used to fantasize about hearing you say that, you know. Apologize, admit you were wrong."

"Oh?"

"It doesn't change anything, though. It took me three years just to be able to date again. I imagine it took you considerably less time than that."

"I haven't done a lot of dating, to be honest. Well, nothing serious. Nothing like when we were-"

"Don't reminisce. It doesn't help anything."

"Okay." We lapsed into an unhappy silence. Jonathan's friends began calling him over for Mesmerize's finale.

"You should go," I said. "She does this great thing with her thighs, you don't want to miss it." Jonathan gave me an odd look. "If I call you tomorrow and ask you to let me buy you coffee, will you think about it?"

Jonathan looked uncertain.

"I'll throw in a donut, too," I teased. He wavered.

"Will you tell me about those extenuating circumstances?" Ah. Well...

"I'll tell you as much as I can."

"Carlie, please don't fuck with me. I am sick to death of being fucked with."

"Yes. Of course."

"Fine, then." Jonathan scribbled his number on a cocktail napkin and stuffed it in my hand. Then he studiously ignored me for the remaining three hours of my shift.


	13. Cruelty In Many Forms

**Thanks to my Beta, even though he is seriously rooting for Jonathan, who can't turn into a wolf ****_at all_****. And thanks for reading this story, even though it is long and awkward and ****_also_**** can't turn into a wolf.**

**I appreciate the support of you, my lovely readers. I love getting reviews, even reviews that accuse me of being a dark wizard. Thanks for sticking in there, guys :}  
**

* * *

I woke up at six, feeling about as fresh after my three hours of sleep as a lint trap. But further sleep was impossible. I settled into the tub for a long soak. The water was tepid before I even began to wash. It was ice-cold by the time I got out. By then the sun was well up and I was tired enough to go back to bed, but I didn't want to waste the whole day sleeping.

Instead, I ate a venison steak the size of my head, just barely seared on one side, and sprinted ten miles. Then I ate another steak-it was my comfort food-and showered. I shaved my legs and armpits, did a little maintenance on my bush, all the while berating myself that nobody would be seeing or touching these body parts any time soon, and what was the point? Still, I used the good lotion when I got out, the kind that smelled like jasmine.

Finally, at eleven o'clock, I nerved up to dial Jonathan.

"You've reached Jonathan's phone. I'm not here to take your call right now, but leave a message and I'll get back to you." And a beep.

"Hi, uh, Jonathan...this is, um, this is Carlie, I was wondering if I could buy you that coffee. Well, call me back." I hurriedly left my number and hung up, heart pounding. Of course he hadn't answered. It was late morning on a Sunday, and he'd been at a strip club till the wee hours. He was probably still in bed. Where I should be.

I would take another bath. That would calm me down.

Two hours later, the buzzing of my phone woke me up, and I snorted up a great deal of water before I realized I'd fallen asleep in the tub. I blew a fist-sized wad of very runny snot out of my nose and answered the phone with my sinuses stinging.

"Hello?"

"Jesus, Carlie, did I wake you up? You sound awful!"

"No, no...well, yes, but it was just a nap. I took a nap in my tub. You should see me, I look like a dried apricot." There was an awkward pause.

"...Right. Well, I got your message."

"Would you like to go out for coffee?"

"Yeah, okay. Have you been to La Va?"

"That's on Shoreview Road, right?"

"Yeah."

"Meet you there at two?"

"Okay."

* * *

I got to La Va fifteen minutes early. Jonathan got there fifteen minutes late. Unless he'd changed significantly since I'd last known him, his lateness wasn't because of a general lack of punctuality. He was sending me a message: I am not your puppy any more. No more beck and call.

I had worked my way through four iced teas and was on my second pee break by the time he arrived. I came out of the bathroom to see him silhouetted in the doorway, eyeing the tables uncertainly.

"Jonathan!" I waved him over to my corner table. "Want anything? Croissant? Brunch? You hungry?"

"Just coffee, thanks."

I ordered a coffee and an espresso and settled myself down.

"So, how have things been for you? What are you doing these days?"

"Carlie."

"Yes?"

"I am here for an explanation. If you are willing to give me one, then great. If not, I'm leaving."

"Okay, okay, yes. All right." I swallowed my espresso in one scalding gulp. "But first I need one thing from you."

Jonathan looked wary. "What?"

"You may very well not believe me. And if you don't, then...I'll accept that. I won't keep bothering you. But even if you don't believe me, I need your absolute unbreakable assurance that you will never, under any circumstances, tell anyone what I'm about to tell you."

"Sure."

"I mean it, Jonathan. Not even if you get drunk. Not even if you get high. Not even if someone with pointy teeth and blood-breath threatens you with bodily harm. If you ever breathe a word of this, bad things will happen to me, and I assure you, much worse things will have already happened to you."

"Good lord, Carlie, I get it. I won't tell. I promise."

I started to sort through what I should tell him-what I could tell him-and where I should begin. It all looked so impossible from a human's viewpoint. Bella had believed it without too much trouble, but then, Bella's cognitive reasoning faculties were not what one might call honed.

"Okay. I'm going to start with the easy stuff. You remember when we started dating, and I told you not to think about me naked around Edward?"

"Yeah?"

"And then one day you thought about our trip to the lake and he tossed you into a locker like you were laundry?"

"How would you know what I was thinking about?"

"Because Edward told me."

Jonathan began to look grimly amused.

"Ah. And how, pray tell, did Edward know what I was thinking about?"

"Because he listened to your thoughts as you were having them."

Jonathan rolled his eyes. "Pull the other one."

"That is what you were thinking though, isn't it?"

"Maybe. I don't know. So, mind-reading brother. How is this-"

"No, actually. Not a mind-reading brother."

"For fuck's sake, Carlie-"

"Edward isn't my brother."

"Yeah, I know, he's your adopted brother. Whatever."

"No, he's not that either, that's just what we told everyone because the truth is so absurd."

"Are you going to dance around this or are you going to tell me?"

"Edward's my father, Jonathan."

Jonathan stared at me as if he didn't know whether to laugh or punch me. He did neither. Instead, he stood up, slammed a fiver on the table and said,

"Well, thank you for the coffee and the very interesting story. I'm going now."

"I told you you wouldn't believe me," I said, standing too.

"Well, Carlie, you're not exactly sounding rational right now. Maybe if you'd told me this stuff when I was still in love with you you'd be getting a different reaction." Ouch.

"Will you at least not tell anyone?" He didn't respond. If nothing else I could bank on no one believing him any more than he'd believed me. And I didn't think he'd mention it to anyone I knew, which was a plus. I followed him silently out to the parking lot and watched him unlock his car before turning away. I sat in my Phaeton, strapped myself in, turned the key in the ignition, placed my hands on the steering wheel, and stared straight ahead for a solid five minutes.

There was a tap on my window. I jumped to see Jonathan standing there and rolled it down.

"I was just wondering," Jonathan said casually, "How far you were planning on taking this. I mean, if I'd believed you. What was at the end of your story? Are you a time traveler? Is that it? Are you actually Atalanta?" I shook my head, took three steadying breaths and, just as Jonathan was about to turn away, I laid two fingers against the pulse in his wrist.

This time, what he saw was not leaking accidentally out of my skin and into his brain. I showed him, very deliberately, the cover of a book bound in poppy-colored leather. On the cover, embossed in electric blue, were the words The Life of Renesmee Carlie Cullen. It looked detailed and impressive, because I had partially constructed it from a photo-album Esme had made for me three birthdays ago. Jonathan jerked away from me with a gasp stillborn in his throat. I heard his heart buzzing as fast as a sparrow's, blood spurting anxiously through veins and arteries, beads of sweat too miniscule for a human's eyes to see bubbling up out of his pores.

"What are you doing?" he asked, very calmly really, considering how close he was to a coronary attack.

"Proving one thing, at least. Give me your wrist." When he just stood there uncertainly, I raised my eyebrows. "I've done this to you before, by accident. I won't hurt you." Grudgingly he held out his hand again and this time, when I transmitted images of my book, he didn't recoil. He just stood staring into the middle distance with his mouth slightly ajar, eyes glazed.

I turned the page of the book. The frontispiece, entirely imaginary because I had no real-life memory to base it on, was in my own handwriting: "Dear Jonathan. I'm so sorry, but all of this is true. All of it." I waited long enough for him to read it and turned the page again.

This was hard. I wasn't used to maintaining a vision so precise as a book. I could have done it verbally, but this was more dramatic. All the words had to be pre-planned and in the right order, and since I never knew where he was on the page I couldn't skip ahead or lose focus for an instant.

"Chapter One," I showed him. "Carlie Cullen was born in the year CE 2006 to Edward and Bella Cullen. The Cullens are supernatural beings with extensive powers. Carlie was gifted with unnaturally speedy growth and the ability to transmit images via touch. She may be the Antichrist, no one knows for sure."

Jonathan barked out an unwilling laugh. I smiled too, a big loosening of my facial muscles that was more an expression of relief than an appreciation of humor in this inherently humorless situation.

"Can I just tell you the rest? It's really hard to keep the page straight."

"How are you doing this?" Jonathan asked, and for the first time I saw something familiar on his face: pleased interest.

"I've always been able to," I said. "I did it when I was a baby. It was how I told my family if I was hungry or bored or had to go pee-pee." Jonathan chuckled. It was the most beautiful sound I'd heard in days.

"Hop in," I said. "I want to tell this to you. I've never told anyone. Not even Jean knows this. Can I trust you?" In his eyes I could see curiosity battling with cold rebuttal, but curiosity won, naturally. He hopped in and I threw the car into drive.

"So, how much of that was true?" Jonathan asked, but this time he wasn't asking to be mean; he really suspected me of a joke. That was encouraging.

"Everything so far," I said.

"Did I read it right? It said you were born in 2006."

"Yep." I glanced at Jonathan from the corner of my eye and saw him doing the math. The look of horror was not long to follow.

"You're thirteen?"

"Yes."

"Oh Christ. Oh Jesus Christ. Please tell me this is all a joke."

"'Fraid not. I wish it were. I feel like a punchline, sometimes. But I really am thirteen."

"Oh god," Jonathan sputtered, "That means...when we were together...oh, god."

"Don't worry about it," I said.

"Don't worry about it? Oh my god, I'm a pedophile!"

"No, you're not. I told you, I had unnatural fast growth when I was younger. I only gestated for like, a month. Almost killed Bella. By the time I was born my mom weighed as much as a spaniel. I got my first period when I was three. And anyway, I'm not completely human, so don't worry. You're not going to jail."

"Wait, what do you mean, completely human?"

"I told you Edward's my dad. Bella's my mom. Bella was human when she got pregnant with me, but Edward hasn't been human for-oh, close on a hundred years now."

"Carlie, please don't do this to me. Please don't. You're making fun of me and it's not-"

I flicked his ear and sent him the words, "No I'm not." That effectively shut him up.

"I'm not making fun of you," I said. "This is all true. You have no idea what kind of world you're living in. Do you want to know why I stayed in St. John's after Jean's wedding? Why the Cullens never came to school on sunny days? Why you never beat me in a race?" Jonathan stayed silent. "They're vampires, Jonathan. Stop trying to get out, the door locks automatically above ten kilometers. Edward Cullen is a vampire. He impregnated my mother, and I almost killed her on my way out. To save her life, he had to turn her into a vampire too. They are all vampires. They don't age. They will never age. I don't even think I'm going to age anymore."

"Carlie, stop it. Just stop it! Stop the car and stop talking!" I pulled off the side of the road and turned to look at Jonathan expectantly.

"I know you don't believe me, but that doesn't make it any less true."

"So what, you're taking me out to...to suck my blood, is that it?"

"Ew," I shuddered. "I don't drink human blood anymore." He flinched at 'anymore'. "The Cullens don't either. And I would never eat a friend."

"Why should I believe any of this?" he asked. The fact that he was asking and not laughing was proof enough that he already believed me, even if he didn't know it yet.

"Vampires don't turn to ash in the sunlight. They can't be killed by a stake through the heart or holy water or garlic. But they are fast, and strong, and if you ever touched one of them you would notice they're too cold to be alive."

"You're warm," he said, and I glowed at how defensively he said it.

"I'm only half-vampire. The rest is human. But I am strong. I am so much stronger than you that if I hadn't been scrupulously careful with you, I could have killed you by accident." Jonathan's neck muscles tensed.

"I was always careful. I always will be. But..." I grabbed a pen from Jonathan's pocket and held it up. It was a metal one, the kind engineers use. "Is this pen very important to you?" I asked.

"No."

So I folded it in half with one hand.

When Jonathan could speak again, and after he had inspected the pen very carefully for signs of dark magic and made several unsuccessful attempts at bending it back into shape, he said, "So, what's this got to do with your complete and devastating betrayal at your graduation?" His words were more casually bitter than fresh with rage-like the bitterness was an old habit. I took heart and decided to give him a version of the truth.

"I remember, with perfect clarity, every moment since birth. And a lot before that. So this next part is...well, I remember it happening like..."

"Like it was yesterday?"

"Like it was two minutes ago. I was a few days old. I saw Jacob for the first time, he saw me for the first time...he wanted to kill me, you know that?"

"Come again?"

"Because he thought I'd killed Bella. He had a thing for her before she turned. And he thought I'd killed her and so he came after me and when we saw each other this...this thing happened. In supernatural circles it's called 'imprinting'." I couldn't tell him about the werewolves and was therefore fudging this part. I wanted to tell him everything, but I could never betray the packs.

"Like a duckling?"

"Exactly like a duckling, yes. It's this attachment, it's so strong that it can't ever be undone or tricked or...our emotions are tuned to the same wavelength. I know it sounds hokey, and it is, but it's real. He was sixteen then, and I was a baby. It wasn't a romantic thing, obviously. It never has been. But there are other kinds of love, and they are just as strong. I've always been much closer to him than to my parents; I really feel like he and Rosalie raised me, which is funny because they can't stand each other."

"How come?"

"They're both Type A's. It was just a bad mix. But they put it aside when I was around. He taught me how to drive and how to swim and how to fight and hunt. And he taught me how to keep a car running. He would do absolutely anything for me. He used to tell me stories until he was hoarse, because after each one I asked for 'just one more', and he didn't want to say no."

"I can imagine what that's like," Jonathan said, looking down at the origami pen in his hands. I shot him an apologetic look, which he didn't catch, so I went on.

"We used to just spend whole days in the woods, tracking animals, competing to see who could bag the biggest game."

"I really can't picture you with a rifle," Jonathan said with half a smile.

"Oh, we didn't use guns." His half-smile receded like the sun behind clouds and he resumed his contemplation of the pen.

"So what were you doing in St. John's, if the love of your life was in Forks?"

"Well, my son of a bitch father read my mind one night while I was dreaming and...I guess he thought that because I had a crush on Jacob, Jacob must have done something to..." I trailed off, unsure of a delicate way to say my father thought Jacob was a child molester. "Well, anyway, Edward believed him, after reading his mind. But he couldn't handle the thought of me going through adolescence with Jacob a stone's throw away. So he dragged us all out here."

"Is Jacob a vampire, too?"

"No. He's just...a guy my mother knew. He was a friend of the family." I couldn't see where to go from here. Jonathan was avoiding eye contact. "I sent him all these postcards, those four years I was here. I tried to run away a couple times, but Edward always caught me before I made it out of Canada. Eventually he agreed to let me go back to Forks if I promised to make an honest effort here until graduation." I glanced over at Jonathan. His face revealed nothing. He really had changed; I used to be able to read him like a book. "This was right after he slammed you into the locker. He wanted us to leave St. John's immediately because of what he saw in your head. We had a huge fight about it but eventually he gave in. I agreed to his terms because I was getting attached to this place and...well, I was falling in love."

Jonathan didn't say anything to this. I put the car in drive and turned back toward the coffee shop where Jonathan's Corolla was parked.

"When I saw him after four years apart, it was like nothing I've ever experienced. I was completely unprepared. It was like imprinting all over again, like being in Plato's cave and turning around and bam, there's the sun, the real sun, blinding and warm and life-giving. I couldn't help myself. I couldn't control my actions. I could no more have stayed away from him than fly."

"I could tell," said Jonathan in a strangled voice. "It was obvious."

"I'm so sorry I put you through that, Jonathan. I didn't even know he was going to be there."

"Why are you telling me all this? What good can it possibly do now?"

"I didn't want you to think that I left because I didn't love you. I had four years' worth of missing Jacob, all built up, and when I saw him everything came bursting out at once. It wasn't your fault. You were perfect. Edward's stupid plan to keep us apart backfired: it just left me missing what I couldn't have. I wake up every morning with Jacob in my head, and I spend every day cursing this god damned imprint that won't just let me live my life. I wanted to be with you. I never wanted to break up. I never wanted to hurt you."

"Well, you did," said Jonathan without rancor. "I believe you. But you really fucked me over. I had so many plans for us and I never even had a hint that you were about to end it."

"What if things were different? What if I didn't go back to Forks? Do you think...we could get coffee again?"

Jonathan's face fell. "You wouldn't do that."

"I might. If I had a reason to stay, I would stay."

"You don't even know me anymore," he burst out. "We were together six years ago. A lot happens in six years. You don't even know if you would like me anymore. I don't know if I still like you."

"That's true. We could hate each other. Maybe I've turned into a bitchy, humorless hag. Maybe you're not amazing anymore. But if we'd never met before today, these would just be things for us to find out about each other. I want to find out about you, Jonathan."

"You'd really stay?" he said quietly.

"Yeah. If you want me to-"

"One date," he said a little breathlessly. "Stay for one date."

* * *

Ring. "Nessie! I was just thinking about you!"

"I was just thinking about you, too. It was right before I dialed your number."

"Funny girl. What's up? You coming home soon?" Jake sounded more bubbly than usual. I wondered sourly if he was with a lady friend, then remembered that if I was going to try to make things work with Jonathan I would have to stop thinking like that.

"You remember Jonathan?"

"Jonathan who? This wasn't a leech, was it? Because you know I don't remember their-"

"He was my highschool boyfriend."

"Oh, that Jonathan. Of course I remember him. He was that angry kid who didn't like me, right?"

"Well, yes, although, to be fair, he was only angry because of how I threw him under the bus the second I saw you at graduation."

"Oh, so we're being fair now?"

"Jake, be serious. He's a really great guy. I ran into him...at work."

"Ohh. How'd he like that? Should I break his fingers?"

"What? No! He's been perfectly respectful of my personal boundaries, thank you very much. I felt like I owed him...some sort of explanation."

"Uh oh. What do you mean by 'some sort'? I hope you don't mean you explained about your inhuman family and your shape-shifting friends. Actually, I don't care if you told him about the C-Team."

"The C-Team?"

"It's my new nickname for the Cullens. I'm also trying out nicknames for the packs. So far I've got Wolf O'Clock and Black Attack, but I'm looking for something with more terror and impressiveness."

"I don't know, I kind of like Wolf O'Clock. Jean calls you the Jolly Red Giant. Is that racist?"

"Who cares? So, what about the angry kid?"

"Why do you call him a 'kid'? He's only four years younger than you. Anyway, I'm going on a date with him."

"Ahhh. Like, a goodbye-and-now-I'm-returning-to-Forks date?"

"No, like a I-hope-you-can-forgive-me-and-give-me-another-chance date." I heard a vast migration of oxygen and nitrogen into Jacob's lungs, followed thirty seconds later by the sound of a lot of carbon dioxide running for its life.

"Ness, first of all, he has nothing to forgive you for. It's not your fault you were born to a supernatural world of awesome, majestic, really cool and witty monsters, and also vampires."

"Hardy har, smartass."

"He's never going to understand the imprint. Why put yourself through that again?"

"Actually, I think he's trying to understand the imprint. Well, he's been very receptive to what I've told him so far, anyway."

"Ungh?"

"I've explained some things to him." Before Jacob had a chance to get riled up I went on, "I didn't tell him a single syllable about the wolves and I never will. You don't have to worry about that. You know I would never betray your furry little secret. But he already figured out some things and I may have helped him along."

"What did you tell him about imprinting?"

"Well, he knew about my gift from when I used to...you know...during...happy fun times." Jacob coughed awkwardly. "So I told him about the Cullens. Not all about them, just the basics. And then I told him that vampires have this thing called 'imprinting.' He really seemed to get it, about imprinting."

"You mean the part where you love me more than you love him?"

"Don't be glib, Jake, this is serious. Of course I love you more than I love him, but that's not his fault. Anyway, it's different kinds of love. I was never fucking you."

"...Er, right." There was a silence as Jacob processed, or avoided processing, what I had said. "Well," he said, "You are one sly dog. But this still doesn't answer the question of: Why are you telling some guy all this stuff? You know the Volturi are still out there and they don't dig shit like this."

"Okay, first of all, the Volturi are way more scared of my family than we ever were of them. Last time they went up against us we sent them running home with their underwear up their asses. And secondly, he's not just some guy. He was my first lo-well, my first romantic love. And, and he's really smart. And I think I still have a thing for him. I don't want to be alone forever."

"Nessie, you have never been alone since the moment your dad bit you out of your mother and punted you into Rosalie's arms. And you'll never, ever have to be without me."

"I know," I said. I flopped down onto my couch and threw my head back. Crackles exploded all along my neck. "But I have needs, Jake. Needs."

* * *

Jonathan took me out for dinner, and then to a performance by the period quartet Quatuor Mosaiques. I was flattered that he remembered my love for early music. I kissed him on the cheek when I found out where we were going.

After our date, he invited me up to his apartment. It was small but clean, unpretentious, with unpainted walls and few photographs. His bed was tiny.

We fucked on that tiny bed until our bones creaked, and it was like playing Tetris, pieces tumbling and turning into their proper alignments. We both had memories of what the other liked; we both had new kinks and new fantasies. When he was too tired to go on screwing, I held him to my chest and let him hear the thudding beneath the skin. He had cut his hair long since and I scritched my fingers sadly through the short remains.

"I miss your long hair," I said.

"I loved you so much," he said. I stopped breathing.

"I loved you too."

"I could probably love you again," he said. "It would be easy. You're so beautiful and sweet and I wish so much I'd met you now instead of then."

"But I'm here now," I said a little pleadingly.

"But for how long?" he asked. "Until the next time Jacob shows up and you can't control yourself anymore?" I disengaged from his arms and leaned back to look at him properly.

"I won't let that happen," I said.

"You know, I was the one who planned Mike's bachelor party. Jean told me you were working there."

"I didn't know that. I'm glad you did."

"I shouldn't have," he said. "I should have let it go. There's only so much punishment I can take."

"Jonathan," I started to say, tears pricking annoyingly at my eyes. But I didn't know where to go from here: "Give me another chance"? "Let me keep hurting you"? He had given me another chance, and somehow without noticing I'd blown it. I'd never really expected him to forgive me. But it had seemed for a while like he might anyway.

"You're not used to being told you can't have something you want," he said slowly. "But I won't just limp along behind you, hoping you'll learn to love me more than him."

"Then why...?" I asked, looking around at his room and our naked bodies that were still partly attached.

He shrugged. "I can't see you anymore, Carlie. I hope you understand that." He looked truly sorry, from what I could see through the haze in my eyes. I pulled myself off the bed, dressed in a rush, and fled his apartment in tears.


	14. Coping Mechanisms

**Thanks for reading, darlings. And you've no idea how much crap I had to cut out of this chapter; it used to be 5,000 words about architecture. Be glad I took my head out of my ass and remembered this is a story about a vigilante stripper. **

**PS Some weird voodoo caused this chapter not to show up...I'm trying her again. Sorry for the confusion. Hope it works now!**

* * *

I got over Jonathan eventually, of course. I hadn't really mourned the breakup when it happened six years ago, so I supposed it was only fair that I feel it now. In my more introspective moments, I even considered the possibility that it would be a good thing in the long run for me not to have succeeded with him. I never could be sure where his feelings ended and my wiles began.

But it was harder than ever being around Jake these days. He was so brightly, cheerfully, _stupidly _untempted by me. I went through a daring period where I wore clothes that wouldn't have been out of place at Jezebelles, low-cut tops and short shorts and tight dresses. I could tell by the stares I got from Seth and Elizabeth and even total strangers that I looked good and sexy.

"Aren't you cold?" was all Jacob said about it, not even looking up from the pizza he was demolishing.

Then, in a fit of pique, I went through another phase where I wore the rattiest, dumpiest clothes I could find. When Alice saw me in a sweatshirt that drooped to my knees, she actually gasped out loud.

"What is _wrong _with you?" she exclaimed, putting her hand to my forehead to take my temperature. "You're the one who dresses _well_, Renesmee! You look like an elephant who lost weight. Stop it. I don't know what you're doing, but _stop it!_"

"Okay, okay!" I said defensively. I let her take me shopping. It soothed her nerves, if not mine.

I was feeling antsier by the day. Most of the time, the wolves didn't really need my help with the irregular flow of leeches that came through Forks. I didn't have enough to do and I had a nagging worry that if I didn't change something soon, I would end up limping after Jake that way Jonathan wouldn't limp after me. Eventually, I gave in to Bella's worrying and joined her and the rest of my family up in Sooke. Jacob ran up to visit us every few days, and it was easier to enjoy his visits if I spent the rest of my time in other pursuits.

* * *

Leah didn't take what she considered my defection very well. I reassured her repeatedly that if the wolves in Forks ever had more than they could easily handle, I would be there like a shot.

"Nothing is more than we can handle," she said acidly, and ended the conversation. I knew she wouldn't call me again, even if a horde of well-trained vampires swept through. I had worked hard to gain her trust, and now it seemed I had thrown it all away in one move. But there was no helping it. I needed the distraction.

The Cullens were part-way through university. I spent a lot of time with my grandmother, shooting the shit and helping her with her projects. When the Cullens finished this round of college, they would have to move on; I suggested that they move up to Vancouver. Esme loved my idea and quickly helped me to persuade the others. Then I took day trips up there to hunt for accommodations.

After some searching I found a row of fixer-upper four-story townhouses in an abandoned old district of the city which had turned to industry. Once beautiful and expensive, the homes were now rambling, shabby old places on the last remaining residential street for miles, each one long since turned into tenements. They smelled strongly of mildew and the liquid effusions of the homeless drifters who had made it their momentary quarters. But they had potential, and some of Esme's love of fixing old things must have rubbed off on me over the years. I fell in love with the blood-red brickwork and the weathered marble steps and sills. Eagerly I told Esme I had found us the perfect digs.

Esme stopped short when we reached the street. I had a moment of nerves as I saw the look of doubt that crossed her face.

"Doable?" I asked apprehensively.

"Anything's doable," she said, forcing her face into an expression of optimism. "I once restored an old stone farmhouse that had been abandoned for ninety years. We can do this. It's a good thing we aren't moving here for another two years, unless you like the smell of stepped-in vomit, but..."

"I get it," I laughed. "I won't expect too much too soon. So, where do we start?"

* * *

Esme, being the experienced restorer, took over all the houses on the street except the little one on the end, which would be demolished, and the really giant one in the middle, which would be for her and Carlisle. I wanted to do the Carlisle/Esme house myself, as a gift. Esme was touched by this and gave me an extra-long hug.

"Thank you, darling," she said, her voice thick and emotional. "It's nice to have someone take an interest."

I hired a local artist to come paint a mural on the ceiling of the ballroom in the big house. He was a youngish art school graduate named Chris, maybe in his mid-twenties. I found his art-speak annoying, but when he talked about normal things like movies and work he was okay. We started hooking up because it was easy; at least, I started hooking up with him because it was easy, whatever his motivations might have been. From time to time he gave me an intense look which made me nervous. But he knew a lot about architecture and design, and he helped me with the house, which was invaluable as I was trying to keep its progress a secret from Esme.

I found a family of badgers living in the chimney when I crawled up there to scrub out the soot. I dragged them down and clutched all three of their scrambling, clawing bodies with distaste. Chris was shocked.

"Dude, Renesmee, you're gonna get rabies!" he said, backing away.

"My grandfather's a doctor, he can just give me a shot," I said calmly, holding the snarling creatures at arms' length.

"What are you gonna do with those?" he asked nervously.

"Dispose of them," I responded. "Stay here." He was happy to obey, and I walked them down the street to where Esme was working.

"I brought you some brunch!" I said, holding them out to her. Esme laughed and accepted the badgers, drained them quickly and buried their little corpses in a bag full of splintered wood. She grimaced at the taste, although I knew badgers were still tastier to Esme than the harmless herbivores on which Bella preyed.

"I like wolverine better," she said, "but badger is okay if it means I don't have to waste time hunting."

Esme had central air and heat installed in all the houses, but left the antique radiators in place. An ancient iron cookstove in the kitchen of the main house was inspected by an expert that Esme had gone to for years, and then repaired and hooked up to gas so it could be used.

"I don't know what I'm going to do when old Rick dies," she said a little sadly. I couldn't tell if it was his expertise or his precious mortality she was mourning.

Esme had seen this man several times since she first hired him twenty years ago, so before his visit she had to make herself up to look like she was in her forties. She and Alice had obviously perfected the art. I asked her why vampires didn't use full face makeup all the time: I knew that with enough cover-up and powder, their skin's natural sparkle was reduced to a translucent glow, which would have enabled them to live in the sun. Esme explained that with such hyper senses as vampires possessed, the powder became an annoyance. It was the same reason they didn't simply wear colored contacts all the time: they could feel every particle of powder and it interfered with the pleasure of the fresh air against their skin. They could do it, and did if necessary, but with eternity before them missing a few days of school or work because of sunshine seemed a small price to pay.

It took us the better part of a year to get everything done. Alice and Rosalie helped us furnish the homes, and it was plain that Esme was thrilled to have us spending so much time with her. Rosalie wouldn't stop chuckling at Chris and me.

"I think it's sweet," Alice said loyally. "He obviously likes you a lot, Nessie. And he did do a good job on that mural. Are you going to keep seeing him after everything's done?"

"Might as well," I replied. "We get along. And he's pretty cool when he forgets to talk like an artist."

When everything was finished, the whole family came up to Vancouver for the grand reveal. Esme and Carlisle were most complimentary of the house I'd fixed up for them, although I didn't have Esme's innate skill with my hands and a good deal of the craftsmanship was contracted out.

Esme had a gift for me. It was a hand-carved cedar box filled with fine linen handkerchiefs that she had hemmed and embroidered, white-on-white. The box was exquisite, the relief-work on it much more delicate than Jacob's bold carvings, and it clearly owed its design to Esme's life in the days of Art Nouveau. Each side of the perfectly symmetrical cube depicted one of the four seasons, and on the lid was carved _Renesmee Carlie Cullen_in Esme's swirling cursive, nestled among perfectly defined sand-verbena. The handkerchiefs had been invisibly hemmed, and edged with lace which Esme had knitted herself out of linen thread. The initials RCC were embroidered in the corner of each. At the bottom of the box was a key to the smallest house on the end of the street, which to my surprise Esme had renovated on the sly, all while assuring me it would be torn down next month, or perhaps the month after that. I was relieved I would not have to live with my parents; much as I loved them, I was used to being on my own these days.

Esme had blossomed while this work was underway, that much was plain to see. It was just the sort of project she loved. It made her feel like her time had meaning again, like she wasn't just existing eternally but actually contributing goodness and beauty to the world.

* * *

The Cullens moved to Vancouver the summer before my fifteenth birthday. Edward tried and failed to convince me to attend high school and college with them. Rosalie and Emmett also declined to bother with the charade, choosing instead to take an extended vacation in the Yukon.

About this time, Jean called me to tell me she was pregnant. It seemed as good an excuse as any to go out and see her. When I told Chris I'd be taking a little trip out to St. John's, I could see the disappointment sparking behind his eyes. As much as he wanted to be a free-wheeling twenty-something, neither of us could ignore that he basically lived with me now, self-consciously paying the utilities on the little house at the end of the street and lighting up when he saw me after a day of work. I'd probably have to euthanize this relationship soon unless I wanted another Jonathan situation. They didn't tell you about that stuff in the _Imprinted Vampire/Human Hybrid Handbook_.

"I'll be back soon," I promised. But I was mistaken in that: after I had settled myself in for the visit with Jean, camping out on an air mattress in her guest room, I started noticing familiar patterns in the paper and on TV, patterns that always meant _leech_. When the meaningless dust of the usual news cycles settled I thought I had a lead.

"I'm pretty sure I've got a baddie hanging around," I told Rosalie when I finally got her on the phone.

"Really?" she asked. "Where?"

"It's hard to pinpoint, but there's been an upswing in animal attacks on the mainland."

"Huh," Rosalie said. "Baby girl, are you sure you want to get into all this again?"

"Yeah, of course!" I said. "Why wouldn't I? You don't have to help if you don't want to..."

"Of course we'll come help," she said hastily. "We'll always help you with this stuff. But I mean, it's not like you have to prove something. You don't even live there anymore."

"I still have friends here, Rose. Besides, maybe this is my contribution to the world."

"Honey, you don't have to be a vigilante to contribute-"

"Come on, Rosie," I cut in impatiently. "Carlisle's a doctor who never says no to a red-eye shift. Esme helped rebuild _Dresden, _for crying out loud. You think I like to be compared to them? I just have to remember what I'm good at and stick to it. And this is just the best job I can do."

"Okay, if this is what you want to do, then you know we're in. Hey hon, I have to go, Emmett's wearing a bear."

"Wearing a-?" But she had already hung up.

* * *

I solemnly hugged Jean (and her swollen uterus) goodbye and went north into the wilderness of Newfoundland with my aunt and uncle. I carried a small pack on my back filled with water and changes of underwear. Rosalie carried a tent and sleeping bag-for me, not for her.

There were very few people up here. There was a military base near Melville so we headed there first. There were traces of leech, but they were cold, so we went east toward some even smaller settlements on the northeastern side of Lake Melville. It was so tiny I couldn't imagine it supporting a vampire, but the scent here was stronger. We were able to follow it into the wilderness between the two towns. By this time I was becoming nervous: Emmett was sure he smelled three distinct leeches, and I knew they would soon be moving on to larger cities. One small military base and a northern town wouldn't be enough for all three of them to feed on without attracting attention.

Sure enough, before we'd gotten them in our sights the trail began to lead back out west. There were a few larger cities this way, with nothing but bumblefuck in between. We sped up our search. I abandoned my tent and just carried around my sleeping bag. We did our hunting on the run, and it was a shock to my system to be drinking animal blood straight from the arteries again, something I hadn't done in fourteen years. I ate a good deal of raw liver and haunch meat just to have something to chew on. I didn't like to light fires because it was time-consuming: every minute that I wasn't sleeping or hunting, I was pressing west with Emmett and Rosalie. I finally started sleeping in Emmett's arms as he barrelled along, nestled in my sleeping bag with my head pillowed on his chest. It was a surprisingly smooth ride.

One day as we sprinted toward Labrador City the smell of fresh human blood cannonballed into us. Rosalie and Emmett both stopped so suddenly they left deep skid-marks on the ground. Rosalie followed the scent, her pupils dilated and a thin line of venom visible between her lips, to a small mound of recently-disturbed earth. She and Emmett dug into it and found a man, middle-aged, still in his hiking gear, pale as a sheet and completely drained of blood. Whoever had drained him had let a few drops fall on the ground, and he had been hidden rather shoddily, but this was the inside of nowhere; he would never be found.

"What was he _doing _out here?" asked Rosalie in a strangled voice. She looked up at Emmett, who shrugged.

"I don't know, babe. Probably camping and hiking. He was probably alone." He pulled her close to him and stroked her hair. She seemed distressed-well, for all the baddies she wasted, she hadn't been around a human corpse in a long time, and Rosalie felt things like this very deeply. I certainly felt sick to my stomach as I stared down at the dead man. His eyelids were already sunken. The fuckers had probably made it to Labrador City by now, assuming that was their goal.

We sprinted on.

* * *

_Ring, ring, ring, riiiiing_. "What?" Leah usually answered her phone like this, but there was an undercurrent of pissiness that I had forgotten she even had.

"Hey Leah, it's me."

"Duh. What do you want?"

"We found some baddies out here. It's a group of three. Labrador City. Rosalie and Emmett are helping but I don't like those odds nearly enough. Can you spare anyone?"

"Why?"

"Um, because they're fucking leeches and that's your job?"

"My job is to protect my people. In Forks. Which is not, I'll note, where you are."

"Leah, there are vampires everywhere. If we kill them out here, they never make it to Forks. Doesn't that seem worthy to you?"

"Why the hell haven't you come back from Vancouver yet?"

"I do come back. I was there two weeks ago."

"I meant permanently, smartass."

"I'm sort of seeing someone." Chris was a handy excuse; I wasn't about to tell Leah the real reason I couldn't handle Forks right now. I'd been talking to Jake on the phone, visiting him on the rez one weekend a month. Any more than that and I was going to go crazy.

"Well, dump his dick. It's not like you're gonna marry him. Get your ass back here, we could really use the help."

"Really? Jacob didn't mention anything..."

"Well, patrols are a bitch. Sean, Brian and Marlo are all graduating this year. They all have theses to write. I don't want the rez to go under for lack of patrols."

"What about Jacob's pack? Why can't they patrol? They're all graduated. Please, Leah, can't you please help me with this?"

"Why don't you ask Jacob?"

"Because your pack is the pack I know how to work with. I mean, if you won't help, then I will have to ask Jacob. But I wanted to ask you first."

"Well, don't I feel special. I really can't spare anyone." _For fuck's sake_.

"For fuck's sake, Leah, there are leeches everywhere! I understand that you're pissed I'm living all of two hours away, but I'm still doing the work. I will come back to Forks if you guys need me to. But right now I'm needed here."

"Sorry, toots. I can't spare anyone."

"Not even Elizabeth?"

"Especially not Elizabeth, she's the best man I've got."

"Fine. Whatever. When I do come back to Forks, I'm gonna kick your ass for being a bitch."

"Not if I kick yours first."

I smashed the _End _button unnecessarily hard and saw a hairline fracture materialize in my touch-screen. I had really hoped Leah would understand. And she probably would, eventually. Leah usually came around if she saw you meant it. But I needed help _now_.

_Ring_. "Hey, stinker!" His throaty voice sent that familiar thrill through my spine.

"Jake, I need help."

"What with?"

"You know how I said I was going to go looking for a leech up in Newfoundland?"

"Yeah?"

"There are actually three. It's just Emmett and Rosalie and me, I don't think we're an even match. Can you spare anyone?"

"We haven't had any action here for a while."

"Does that mean you're due or that you can help?"

"When do I ever say no to you?" Good point. "I'd better come up there. Leeches are leeches, right?"

"Leah doesn't seem to think so. She's pissed at me for staying out here."

"So you called me second, huh?" Jacob's chagrin was so cute.

"You know it."

"Well, I'll come out there and bring a few wolves. I have to leave Seth behind to take care of things while I'm gone. Sorry you won't be able to see him."

"That's okay. I'll see him next time I'm in Forks."

"I'll bring Lisa, Kyle and Robbie. Robbie just wasted his first solo leech last month. He deserves a reward. New scenery."

"Wow, good on him! How'd it go?"

"I'll let him tell you. He's very proud of it. It all happened underwater."

"Shit man, that's awesome! I can't wait. I'll send you airline tickets. We're in Labrador City."

"We can manage."

"It's a business expense, Jake. Just let me send the tickets."

"No."

"Can I at least pay for Lisa and Kyle? They don't even have jobs."

"Fine, pay for them. We'll be out there as soon as we can."

"Awesome! And on the way back, maybe you can stop in Vancouver. I really want to show you my new house."

"And meet this mysterious Chris guy."

I huffed impatiently. "What's the point?"

"I need to make sure he's good enough for you."

"Ugh, you sound like Edward." I slapped idly at a mosquito that was trying and failing to puncture my skin. It died a frustrated, hungry little death.

"Nedward would just order you not to date until you're married. All I'm asking for is a chance to make sure he's okay."

"Sure, whatever. But you have to swear you will try not to act too..._imprinted_, okay?"

"What does that mean?"

"You know, all...like...playing around and the inside jokes, and..." This conversation had taken a horrifically uncomfortable turn. "I mean," I sputtered, "Everything was fine with Jonathan until..."

"Until I got in the way, huh? That seems to be what I'm good at."

"Jake, don't talk like that, you know I don't see it that way. But hey, I'm not going to stay celibate until my ladyparts wither up and fall off."

"Your daddy would shatter from happiness if you did."

"Wouldn't that be nice. See you soon?"

"See you soon. Love you."

"Love you."


	15. Mopping Up

**I am told by my beta that Nessie is a contemptible man-hunter. I think she is just a young woman who lacks perspective. What do you think?**

* * *

I met Jacob, Robbie, Lisa and Kyle at Wabush Airport. Jake and I felt each other the moment the plane hit tarmac, and I was hopping around on the balls of my feet by the time he made it to the security gate. I couldn't help the little screech of joy that echoed through the dingy waiting-area when I finally saw him walking toward me. We both broke into a run and were squeezing each other fiercely before a single word had been uttered.

The other wolves were used to our displays: it happened this way every time we visited after an absence of any length. Kyle just picked up Jacob's one carry-on and walked ahead with his friends.

I hung in Jacob's arms, my hands on either side of his face, sending him pictures of the cadaver, of St. John's and of the chase.

"We think they're somewhere around here. The trail led into the outskirts of the city. Emmett saw them, two females and a male. I haven't seen them yet but now that you're here we won't have to hold back. I'm so glad to see you, Jake." I inhaled deeply. His scent was delicious, like rain on cedar, but with something sharper and wilder underneath; I wanted to bottle it and keep it in a drawer with my vibrators. His cheeks were faintly bristled. Before thinking, I rubbed my own cheek against his and purred. Jacob laughed, the sound bubbling up from somewhere deep in his chest. It was the way a volcano might laugh, if it heard a good joke.

Eventually he put me down and we walked, hand in hand, to where Emmett and Rosalie were now waiting with Robbie, Kyle and Lisa. Rosalie had rented a car and a few hotel rooms for the wolves, and they loaded the carry-ons into the trunk before we all bundled in. The wolves took up so much space, even in a minivan, that Rosalie started grumbling.

"Aw, Rosie, you're just mad you have to drive a soccer-mom car." Emmett twitted her mercilessly the whole way to the hotel, until she punched him in the arm hard enough to almost run us off the road. They finished the ride in silence, both with strange little satisfied smiles on their faces.

I, meanwhile, was sprawled over Jake's legs chattering with Robbie, who was wedged into the middle back seat between Lisa and Kyle.

"Yeah," he told me, "We were onto a solo leech. She jumped into the ocean, which is usually where we lose them. We can swim fine but we aren't as streamlined as them in water. But I was so close I actually landed on top of her and got my claws in before she could get away. She kept trying to drown me-"

"Almost succeeded!" piped up Lisa, a lanky twenty-year-old in glasses.

"Yeah," said Robbie, shaking his head grimly. "I figured if I wanted to not drown I would have to get the killing over with, so I managed to get a grip on her head. She was scratching and clawing like a freak, took a huge chunk out of my leg, but I just held my breath and sawed through her neck with my teeth."

"You shoulda seen it," said Lisa. "We'd never seen venom in water, but it sinks like a stone. By the time he dragged her out she was almost drained, plus she was soaking wet, and it took us a sonofabitch to get her lit up, especially 'cause all her limbs kept trying to get away. It was totally wicked."

"Then I had to fish out the piece she took from my leg, and that was all waterlogged, and by then the gash had already started healing, so Jake had to reopen it so we could fit the piece back in and let it heal normally. That hurt like a fucker. Your boyfriend's a total butcher, Ness."

Jacob reached back and pounded Robbie right on the bumpy scar on his thigh. Robbie yelped and tried to retaliate, but Jacob just leaned out of his way.

"It was a good first kill," he said, laughing. "Not as good as Elizabeth's, but..."

"Well," grumbled Robbie, "Nobody's as good as Elizabeth. Pity about that imprint."

"Why?" I asked. "What's wrong with William?" The temperature in the car dropped several degrees. The wolves looked shiftily at each other.

"Well," Kyle said finally in his gravelly voice, "We're pretty sure she's going to stop phasing soon. William's already way older than her."

"Not that much older," I demurred. "Only ten years."

"She hasn't said she's going to stop," Lisa put in. "She might not."

"Well, Sam and Jared and Quil and Paul all gave up phasing," said Robbie. "She will too. All the imprints do." I eyed Jacob.

"Do you think she will?" I asked him.

"Elizabeth will never give up phasing," he said simply. "She'll just be a young woman loving an old man."

* * *

With four wolves on our side, the three nomads were no major threat. None of them had special powers that we could see. The wolves managed to separate one from the flock and take him down. The two remaining were both female, and I was shocked to discover that they were mates-not, as I had previously assumed, one mated to the male and one third wheel. They were scrappy, once they realized they were losing: one of them actually pulled Rosalie's arm right off before Emmett could behead her. I was fascinated by the rather grizzly image it presented. Rosalie looked like a Terminator: the nerves and blood vessels in her shoulder were silvery and glistening, looking more like wires than actual functioning body parts. She kept well away from the bonfire while Emmett rounded up her arm and held it in place, then slobbered saliva all around the seam. She winced in pain every time she moved.

"Does it hurt much?" I asked her. "Do you want me to bring you anything, maybe a deer or something?"

"No," she said. "I haven't felt pain in ages. I'd almost forgotten what it was. Ouch, careful, baby!" Emmett kissed the place where her arm was joined back to her shoulder. They stood there silently, not moving, just watching each other, lost in their own private world. After a long while Emmett stepped back.

"Try that," he said quite gently. I'd never seen him so solicitous, although I'd never seen Rosalie injured before either. He had a light in his eyes that made him look almost human. Rosalie tentatively moved her arm, gritting her teeth against the hurt, but the join held.

"I think it needs another day or so to completely heal," said Emmett. "Don't knock it into any mountains or it might come off again."

"Doctor Emmett. I love this side of you," said Rosalie. I skipped out of hearing because they were starting to get that look in their eyes, the look that meant imminent dirty sex.

The wolves were about to light a match to the heap of vampire parts. One of them-a red-headed pixie-like female-hadn't been beheaded, but her limbs had been removed.

"Wait," I said to Kyle, who was about to click the lighter. "I want to ask her something." She gave me a fierce look of hatred, which I didn't mind-I got it all the time from leeches.

"How old are you?" I asked her, and then, because she didn't look very communicative, I added, "You might as well talk to me. Who knows, you might find the upper hand." The boys chuckled darkly behind me.

"Ninety," she spat, glaring over at the wolves. "I know who you are. You're the shape-shifters everyone's been talking about. You'd better watch your back, sonny. _And _those traitors." She jerked her chin in the direction of Rosalie and Emmett. "You'll be dead within the decade. A lot of us hate you. You can't kill us all."

"Try us," said Jacob.

"Did you know you were a lesbian when you were alive?" I asked her, filing her threats away for later. "When did you meet your mate?" Her eyes slid over to where the other female's head was silently mouthing what looked like _I love you_, and all the fire went out of her.

"I knew," she said sadly. "I knew as soon as I met Violet. She turned me."

"Did she turn you so you could be mates?" I asked, truly curious now. The redhead nodded.

"I thought I was in heaven. I could have with her what was denied me in life." She looked so tragic that for a moment I almost wished we could let them live. I pushed the thought away and turned my head. Kyle threw down the lighter and I saw the flare of light on Jacob's face. For once there was no jubilation in his eyes. They were like polished black stones, dancing with the gold filigree of the reflected flames.

"That's why we behead them," he said, holding out his arms to me. "It's better if you don't have to hear them talk." I tumbled into his arms, as uncoordinated as a child, and breathed very slowly until my heart rate slowed to its usual staccato.

* * *

The wolves accompanied us back to Vancouver; they got a lot of dirty looks on the plane, where they took up way more space than coach allows for. I called Chris before we left and told him to expect company, and to pick up as much food as our fridge could hold.

After one last stern warning to Jacob not to act too imprinted, I led the way into the house. Chris gave me an open-mouthed hello, which he cut short when he saw who was following me.

He'd never seen Rosalie and Emmett before, and I could tell he was a little intimidated by Emmett's physique. But even Emmet was nearly dwarfed by the four who came after. Lisa, two inches taller than Rosalie, was the shortest of the wolves. Jacob actually had to stoop to clear the doorway.

Chris greeted Rosalie and Emmett courteously, if a trifle nervously. They took pity on him and pretended not to notice. He greeted the three younger wolves with everything they needed to hear to become his friends for life:

"Nice to meet you. There's ten chickens in the dining room, help yourselves." They sprinted into the dining room so fast I heard a few tiles of parquet pop out of alignment.

"And this is Jacob Black," I said. Jacob was, as always, completely at his ease. He stood blocking all the light from the doorway, shades of a grin tickling the corners of his mouth.

Jacob stuck his hand out first and Chris took it, with a quizzical look at me. I was relieved that they didn't try to crush each other's fingers, either because they were trying to act like adults or because they both knew who would win.

"Good to meet you," boomed Jacob, for all the world as if he were the host.

Chris smiled and said, "Welcome to Vancouver. This your first time visiting?"

"Mm hmm. Nice place you've got here." Jacob strolled into the living room, ducking beneath the curved lintel.

"Well, Carlie did the decorating," said Chris, with a resolute effort at affability. "It was a total crack-den at first. There were badgers in the chimney and everything. Carlie had to get rid of a lot of wildlife before it was livable."

"Yeah," chuckled Jacob knowingly, "Nessie's really got a way with animals." I glared at him over Chris's head.

"Er, you hungry?" asked Chris. "Want a beer or anything?"

"Yeah, okay." Jacob followed us into the dining room, where there were six and a half-chicken carcasses left-and counting.

"Here ya go," I said, pulling several bottles of Corona out of the mini-fridge and tossing them around.

Jacob caught his and then reached out and neatly removed the one intended for Lisa from its arc. "You're underage," he said to her.

"So's Nessie!" she protested, then clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes darting guiltily to Chris. Robbie and Kyle looked daggers at her.

"Huh?" said Chris. "Renesmee just turned twenty-one." This was the age I was giving people around here.

"Oh...right," said Lisa awkwardly. There was a long, chicken-filled pause. "So, can I have a beer or what?" asked Lisa finally.

"Still no," said Jacob.

"Whatever, Jake, you were drinking beer when you were twelve." I tossed her another one, since Jacob had finished off his and started on hers. Chris looked around at the horrors assembled in his dining room and seemed to reach the conclusion that none of them planned to attack him, although we could all sense plain as day that his heart rate was elevated and his hands were shaking.

"So, how do you guys all know each other?" he asked.

"Old friends," said Jacob promptly. "We've known each other since Nessie was a baby."

"Cool," said Chris. "Are you all, like, bodybuilders or what?"

"Nah," said Robbie. "This is just genetics."

"So, what, you're all half-giant or something?" Chris thought he was making a joke, but the three younger wolves became very interested in their drinks.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Jacob smoothly. "Giants aren't real."

"Oh," said Chris, trying feebly to laugh. He excused himself to use the bathroom. We all heard him go into the library; we heard the squeak and groan as he flopped in a leather armchair and sighed heavily.

"Hey," said Emmett excitedly, "Now that the meatsack is gone, whyn't you show 'em your new scar, baby?" Rosalie _tsk_ed and shook her head, but the wolves were intrigued.

"You got hurt?" Lisa asked.

"It was nothing," said Rosalie. Her gracious tone of voice was somewhat undermined by the furious looks she was shooting at her smirking husband.

The werewolves gathered around Rosalie. Jacob took their distraction as an opportunity to start chucking beer bottles at my head. I deflected them and sent them sailing back across the room at him. One of them was still half-full and we began throwing it faster, each trying to get the other to spill it.

"Wow!" exclaimed Kyle. "That's wicked! Can I touch it?" Rosalie's patience was nearing tipping point, but she let the others run their warm fingers over the nearly smooth line that snaked over her shoulder, under her armpit.

"A hundred and five years I go without a single scar, and then that bitch had to go and tear my whole damn arm off," she complained. "I'll never be able to hide this."

"Aw, it doesn't show that much," said Lisa sympathetically. "Anyway, I think scars are cool."

"Well, it shows up a lot more to me than it does to you," she began, but Emmett cut in.

"Don't worry, Rosie, you're still the hottest thing on two legs. It'd take more than one little scar to ugly you up." Rosalie looked slightly mollified and began to answer the others' questions more agreeably.

I was distracted, eavesdropping on them, and Jacob feinted to the left and threw right. Warm, fizzy Corona splashed all over my face and head and he crowed victoriously.

"Come on, Butterfingers, let's get you cleaned off. Just look what a mess you've made of the floor." He ducked my fist and I chased him into the kitchen. I bent down and rammed him in the small of the back with my beer-y head, leaving a wet patch on his black t-shirt. He accepted my challenge and tried to get me into a headlock.

By the time Chris balled up enough to rejoin the guests and come looking for me, Jacob was trying to rinse my hair out over the sink while I kneed him repeatedly in the kidney. We were both laughing too hard to breathe, let alone speak, but one look at Chris's face sobered me right up. I pointed at Jacob and said,

"He spilled beer on me." I hiccupped a little.

"Don't blame me, you fumbled the catch."

"Yeah, I saw there was a spill," Chris said tonelessly. "I'll be out there." He vanished back through the doorway.

"Oh, poo," I said petulantly "That is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to avoid."

"Why?" asked Jacob unconcernedly. "You didn't do anything wrong, except get beer everywhere. If your guy's too uptight to handle that…"

"Not the beer," I said, swinging my arm in an arc that encompassed both of us and the beery water that we'd sprayed around during our frolic. "This. Would you like to be on the outside looking in at us?"

"Hm. I never thought of it that way. Well," Jacob said with a theatrical shrug of the shoulders, "If you put it like that, there's really only one thing to do."

"Which is?"

"Come back to Forks." Jacob kissed me squarely in the middle of my forehead and strolled out of the room.

* * *

"What's up with that guy?" Chris asked me as soon as the wolves went back to Forks.

"What do you mean?" I pretended not to know what he was talking about.

"Jacob. He is like..._way_into you."

"That's what everyone says. I really don't see it."

"He was staring at you the whole time he was here," Chris insisted. "And that stunt with the-"

"Chris," I said impatiently, cutting him off.

"What?"

I could see where this was going. Chris would be convinced Jacob was a threat; I would fail to convince him otherwise. It didn't seem worth it, honestly. Chris was cute and pretty okay in bed, and otherwise unremarkable. After a year together I still didn't feel like I knew him; I didn't feel like there was that much to know.

"You're right. I'm secretly in love with my childhood friend, and you will be tortured by this knowledge even though I swear nothing will ever come of it, and then you'll dump me in anger."

"What?" Chris looked horrified. "Renesmee, I don't want to break up, what are you talking about-"

"No," I said wearily. "But you will."

"Renesmee, I could never want that. I love you!" Oh god, he meant it, he really meant it.

"I'm sorry, Chris," I said flatly.

"Wait, are you breaking up with me?" he asked in a high-pitched, panicked voice. "What the hell is going on? We were just having a conversation-"

"I know," I said a little more gently. "I never meant to let this get so serious. I thought we were just, you know, convenient for each other."

"You thought I was just _convenient_?" His jaw dropped. _Yes, Chris, get angry already_. "Can't we talk about this?"

"If you want," I said. "But it won't change anything."

"Renesmee, I swear I won't get jealous. We can just be convenient, we can do whatever you want." I took a moment to appreciate that, awful as the Jonathan situation had been, _he _at least had had a little pride. Chris was like a little frightened bunny rabbit, running as hard as he could from the specter of my rejection.

"Ahhhh," I sighed. "Hhhhhuuuhhhmmm."

"Let's just...take it a day at a time, okay?" he pressed, eyes wide and earnest, beard quivering with anxiety. He was sweet. He really believed he could love me without hating Jacob. Then again, maybe it _was _possible; maybe if he was prepared for Jacob, we could work around it. When had I become so cynical, anyway?

"Sure, okay," I said.


	16. Death Is a Distant Rumor to the Young

**Hey guys! Thanks for reading. I try to avoid begging for reviews, because I figure if you like a chapter you'll review it on your own. But this one is probably my favorite chapter in this whole story; shit gets real, but oddly enough it's the one I'm most proud of and I feel it most completely captures the character I am trying to give this story. It also represents a major turning point in the development of Nessie's moral growth, which thus far has never been challenged in such a major way (you'll see) (and in case the chapter title and my cryptic notes aren't warning enough, beware of darkness and death ahead. That warning applies to the rest of the story as well).**

**So if I may make a request: if you have any opinion on this chapter at all, any criticism or any points you want to make, I would really appreciate a review. It would be really helpful for me, as a writer, to get your input. I hope you like! And I hope you don't hate me too much for...certain developments. :{  
**  
"Death is a distant rumor to the young. ~Andrew A. Rooney"

* * *

A few days later, the buzzing of my phone woke me up in the middle of the night. Chris turned over restlessly but didn't wake.

"_Leah_?" I whispered, scrambling out of bed and into the bathroom. I shut the door and turned on the light, which blazed straight through my corneas and into my pain center.

"One and only."

"To what do I owe the extreme honor?"

"Don't be prissy. We have a problem." Her voice was curt but not annoyed. I wondered if she was over her anger at me or just ignoring it while there was business at hand.

"What happened?"

"Elizabeth was in Seattle for an orgy and she found a couple of leeches."

"An _orgy_, did you say?"

"Well, you know Elizabeth. Maybe it was just a date, all I know is she smelled a hell of a lot like Latex when she got back."

"So, what's the problem? Did she lose the leeches?"

"She was alone so she just trailed them for a while, tried to figure out exactly where they were headed. She heard them mention the Cullens."

"Oh, _crap_."

"Oh fuckballs is right. They went off into the woods and started boning and she came straight back. We need to know who they are and whose side they're on. We were hoping you could help with that."

"What did they look like?"

"Annoyingly blonde. The male was very tall and the female was tiny. Elizabeth says the female called the male 'Peter' but she didn't get the chick's name."

"Shit," I spat.

"What?"

"Peter and Charlotte. Friend's of Jasper's." I heard silence on the other end. "Leah? You still there?"

"So they're allies."

"Not necessarily. Friends, yes. The Cullens won't want them harmed, and I... I don't want to have to fight my whole family on this. They're Jasper's oldest friends, and Alice will side with Jasper, and Edward and Bella will side with Alice, and you know how Carlisle is."

"I see. Well, thanks for helping." The edgy tone had slipped back into Leah's voice. She was about to hang up.

"Leah, wait."

"What?"

"What are you guys going to do?"

"Kill the motherfuckers, what do you think? Unless you plan on ratting us out. Is that what you're going to do, Ness? Tell on us?"

"I would never—"

"I don't even know whose side you're on anymore."

"That's bullshit, Leah. I've always been on your side."

"Yeah? Prove it." I sucked my breath in sharply. This was so fucked up. Aunt Charlotte. Uncle Peter. They really liked me. They sent me Christmas presents. How could I betray them? I _knew _them.

But then I thought about their red eyes. They loved me, but they didn't know Charlie from Adam; they would suck him dry as soon as look at him.

_But they would never hunt in Forks. Charlie's in no danger, _I thought.

_But they hunt other places,_ myself retorted. _Someone else's Charlie is in danger. They've already killed a thousand Charlies. Maybe they've also killed someone's Jean and someone's Leah and someone's Jake..._

"What do you want me to do?" I asked faintly. There was a pause while Leah thought.

"Tell me about them."

"Um...not much to tell. They don't have any special abilities or anything but Peter is a seasoned fighter. He hasn't fought in a long time, though. And as far as I know he's only ever fought other leeches." I sat on the edge of the tub and took steadying breaths.

"Is that all?"

"Leah, they drink human blood." I dragged the words from somewhere deep, like a memory I'd blocked out.

"No shit, Watson."

"They murder people. Innocent people." I could hear the agitated breathing on the other end. Leah wanted me to hurry up and get to the point, but I knew that once I made this decision, I couldn't turn back. So I took my time getting there, savoring the last few seconds before I crossed the threshold from "vigilante" to "murderer." A murderer of murderers. But wasn't this exactly what I held against the other Cullens? They didn't drink human blood, but they sat by and let it happen at the hands of their friends. "I think... I'd better come down there," I whispered. "You'll need help."

"What happened to not wanting to fight the Cullens?"

"Jasper will never forgive me," I said, my voice growing stronger. "And if he doesn't Alice won't be able to. So we'd better not let them find out." There was another pause, but this time when Leah spoke she sounded crisply excited.

"So you're in."

"Yeah. I'm in. We just have to plan this right. Did Elizabeth find out where they were going?"

"She tracked them north, but we don't know where their final destination is meant to be. I've got her and Embry up there to keep an eye on things."

"Okay. They're probably coming to visit my family. I didn't hear anyone mention it but they always just show up unannounced. You know what, if that's the case then we're going to have to wait it out."

"Are you fucking kidding me? Wait what out? Wait for them to eat a few people in our backyard?"

"Seriously, Leah. Think about this. Human-eating friends of the Cullens never feed near the coven, so we probably have a little window of safety. But if the Cullens know they're coming and they don't show up, our job is going to get _so much harder_. By all means trail them, and if they start to attack any humans you can step in, but if at all possible wait til after the visit, okay?" We talked logistics and it helped steady me. Planning a strike, now that was something I understood.

"So I guess this is what it takes to drag you away from your boy toy, huh?" Leah drawled a half hour later.

"I guess it's time for me to put on my big girl pants," I said only half-jokingly. "It's probably a good thing Chris is going out of town in the morning. I wouldn't want them eating him by accident." Leah snorted. "Hey, Leah?"

"What?"

"I miss you too."

"Who said I missed you?" she said defensively.

"Don't kill anyone without me."

"See you."

* * *

The next morning, I casually mentioned to my parents that I would be going down to visit Forks in a few days. They glanced meaningfully at each other and suggested that I put my visit off for a week or so—for no reason, oh no, no reason at all.

Two days later, the air of suppressed excitement in the Cullens was getting to be a bit much. My parents contrived to take me out to a new bookstore that had recently opened up, and Edward would not stop smiling secretively at me when he thought I wasn't looking.

"What's going on, guys?" I asked the third time I caught it as we were driving back.

"Now, if we told you, it wouldn't be a surprise, would it?" said Edward playfully.

I laughed delightedly, like it was all one big joke. I had been acting unusually amicable the last couple days, an important part of the plan Leah and I had worked out. And I was thinking only sweet, innocent thoughts, even occasionally reaching out to my parents to send them candy-colored memories of _Renesmee Cullen's Top Ten Girlish Moments_. I didn't think Edward was picking up much from me—he did that thing again, where he kept asking me personal questions and looking all disappointed at my boring responses. I tried thinking deliberate questions at him about safe subjects, and he just kept frowning at me.

"What was that?" he asked. "I didn't quite—"

"I was just asking how school is going. I feel like we haven't really talked in so long." He shook his head a little, like he was trying to clear water out of his ears.

"Oh...yes, it's good. We're all doing well."

"Oh, Edward," my mother chided from the back seat, "Stop trying to hear her thoughts. I don't like all these private conversations, they make me feel shut out."

"Forgive me, my love." Edward smiled apologetically at my mother in the rearview mirror. "Anyway, I'm not hearing much. I think our daughter has more of you about her than me."

I pouted a little. "That's so weird. You used to be able to hear everything! I wonder what happened. I miss our secret conversations. Remember when we used to mess with Rosalie's head?" My father smiled at the memory.

"She hated having the wool pulled over her eyes, didn't she?"

"Well," said Bella, with a pout of her own, "I think it's good for you to have someone you can't hear. It makes you work harder."

"Of course, my love. I didn't mean to complain." I turned away so I wouldn't vomit at the looks these two were giving each other. _Blech_.

The smell of human-eater struck me as soon as I walked into the foyer, but I pretended not to notice. Edward and Bella conducted me to the parlor where—surprise, surprise—Peter and Charlotte were waiting. I let out a shriek of joy and rushed into their arms.

"I'm glad to see you haven't forgotten your old aunt," Charlotte said laughingly in that sweet Southern drawl.

"I never forget anything! Oh my god, it's been just ages!" I danced around a little and even clapped my hands, looking for all the world like my birthday had come early.

"I do declare, you've only gotten prettier," said Peter courteously. "You must have quite a challenge looking over her beaux, Edward."

"Oh, don't be silly," I giggled. "I only have one boyfriend. I'm sorry he's not around, he's working on a project in Victoria. Chris is a muralist," I said proudly. "He did the mural of the Pantheon in the ballroom."

"He did that lovely design? Well, he must be a very gifted young man indeed!" said Charlotte. "I look forward to hearing all about him—maybe when the menfolks aren't around."

"Say!" said Peter. "Jasper, I was hoping you would show me your horse. I haven't ridden since the war but I must say I miss that animal bond. How on earth did you get the beast to trust you? Doesn't it fear for its life?"

Jasper shrugged. "I don't eat pack animals."

"That's a marvelous dress you've got on, Ness!" Charlotte beamed. I dipped a self-conscious little curtsey, smoothing my youthful banana-yellow shift-dress over my legs. I looked like a child of the Sixties—emphasis on _child_.

"Alice gave me this dress," I said happily. "I love the Sixties."

"Oh, yes," said Charlotte, "That was a very good decade. I must tell you about Woodstock some time."

"You were at Woodstock? Oh my god, was it amazing?"

"Oh, yes," laughed Charlotte, "Peter and I had a marvelous time. Everyone was as high as a kite that weekend, including us!"

"I didn't think vampires could use drugs," I said.

"Oh, we didn't use drugs, _per se_—" Charlotte began, but Esme silenced her with the slightest shake of her head. "Well, anyway, that was then!" There followed a slightly awkward moment; even Edward faltered in his playing on the grand piano in the corner as he listened to us. Then it dawned on me what Charlotte meant: they went to Woodstock to gorge on hippies. Instead of smacking her self-satisfied, face like I wanted to, I erupted in giggles.

"Oh, I get it!" I said. "Ew, Aunt Charlotte!" She shot me a mischievous smile, which I returned while my skin tried to crawl right off my body. Betraying her to the packs would be easy if she kept talking like this.

"It's too bad Rosalie and Emmett couldn't be here too," said Bella in a transparent attempt at smoothing things over.

"Yes, how is dear Rosalie?"

"Ask Renesmee, she sees them more than we do these days," said Alice.

"I must say," said Charlotte wistfully, "It's wonderful to see such a happy family."

"You could always join our happy family," suggested Carlisle from beside the piano.

"And live on animals?" She shuddered delicately. "No, thank you!"

"I hated giving up human blood, too," I chipped in. "But then, I get to eat people food. If you could eat Esme's cooking you would never look back." Esme pressed my hand affectionately.

Jasper and Peter came back in, talking animatedly about horses and smelling strongly of Jasper's nineteen-hand charger, Lieutenant.

"How long are you staying?" I asked them.

"Oh, we'll be getting hungry soon, this is just a short visit. We're going to head down to Chile in a couple of days. That's where we first fell in love." There was a chorus of _aww_s.

"Well, I was planning on going down to Forks tomorrow but I hate to miss any of your visit," I said anxiously.

"I have a swell idea," said Peter. "If you stay for another day, we can travel with you as far as Washington."

"Oh, yes, let's do," put in Charlotte. "I would love to have some more time with you, dear. We must hear all about this boyfriend!" Edward hit a sour note on the piano. Charlotte winked conspiratorially.

"You wouldn't mind?" I asked.

"It would be our pleasure!"

"So that's settled," said Carlisle with satisfaction. "And we'll see you again when you return, Nessie—just you try not to be too tempted by our guests' ways!"

Everyone laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

* * *

Before I left, Bella packed me a brown-bag full of the jerked venison I liked to snack on when I went running long distances. It was made of deer that Bella caught herself and Esme dried in a little lean-to behind the stable.

"Stay safe, sweetie," Bella said as she always did when I left her. "I love you. Say hi to Jake and Charlie for me, okay?"

"Will do, Mom. Thanks for the provisions."

I texted Leah when we left the house. We would be running the whole way, and it wouldn't take long, only a few hours if we ran at a leisurely pace. I sent Leah the text:

_On my way! Can't wait to see you! xoxo Ness_

This may have been an unnecessary subterfuge, but I didn't dare risk a more open message. Not that they suspected anything: I looked and acted totally guileless. I dressed in another dainty shift dress for the journey—robin's egg blue, embroidered with little white butterflies around the boat neck. And I wore a pale blue headband in my curls, and a silver locket with my parent's pictures on one side and Chris's picture on the other. Peter gallantly offered to carry my luggage, slinging my hefty-sized suitcase on his shoulder with ease. He made sure to run ahead of us for a while, to give Charlotte and me a chance to have some girl talk. I showed her the locket-picture of Chris.

"He's very cute," she said. "He's not...one of us?"

I blushed. "No, he's human."

She looked surprised. "Oh? What about that wolf-boy you were so enamored of in your childhood? That all seemed like a foregone conclusion at the time. And what does Chris think of your strength? Not to mention your gift..."

I placed my hand on her arm and sent her a memory of Chris looking into my eyes and saying tenderly, "_I will always love you, no matter what._" He looked very handsome in that memory; it had occurred at our six-month dinner, over candlelight. His beard was golden and trim, and his blue eyes were full of adoration. I gave the picture a little boost as I transmitted it to Charlotte, infusing it with nostalgia and longing. I felt a little cruel using Chris's memory to manipulate Charlotte, but there was nothing else for it. It was imperative that she be blind to my true motives, and bonding over my precious young love was the only way I could think of to play it convincingly.

Charlotte sighed fondly. "I think it's wonderful you've found someone who means so much to you. It's clear when you talk about him that he's a very special part of your life. But dear, you know, he can't live forever. Don't you think it would be better if you found someone more like us?" She was lumping me in with vampires, an auspicious omen.

I shook my curls uncertainly. "I don't know, he's just so amazing. There's nobody else like him."

"Well, of course you think that now, but you're very young. You have a long, long life ahead of you. Who knows who you may meet in centuries to come?" Even if she hadn't been a serial murderer, I would have found her condescension irritating. But it was a good sign that she felt I was too young to make serious decisions on my own. It would never occur to her to fear a _child _like me.

"Well, I did have one idea...I mean, I haven't told anyone about this or anything, I don't even know how my parents would react if they knew I was thinking about it..." Charlotte's lovely eyes widened and she brushed a strand of silky pale hair away from her garnet-colored eyes.

"You can tell me, dear. Perhaps it would be good to have an outside opinion."

"Do you swear you won't tell anyone? Except Peter, of course?"

"I swear it."

"Well, I was thinking, maybe I could do for Chris what my dad did for my mom. You know, turn him...if he wanted to. That way we could be together forever. I don't know, is that a crazy idea?" I tilted my head to one side and awaited her answer anxiously.

"Well," she deliberated, "It's hard to know how he will react. You have no way of knowing, for example, if he would take to the diet your family seems to think so necessary."

"Oh, I wouldn't mind about that," I burst out impetuously, "If only I could be sure not to lose him! I just don't want to see him grow old and die...without me." A single tear welled up in my eye and slid beatifically down my cheek. Charlotte pulled me into her smooth arms and stroked my hair.

"Oh, Renesmee, of course, of course. You're in love! Perhaps you could give it a year or two, just to be sure. But if you truly love each other, maybe it would be best. After all, eternity is a long time to spend alone. He would make an excessively attractive vampire. And you know, even if he couldn't live like the Cullens, you would always have Peter and me."

"I know. Thank you, Aunt Charlotte. It's nice to talk to someone on the outside."

"Perspective is a wonderful thing."

* * *

Charlotte and Peter accompanied me as far as the westernmost tip of Lake Crescent.

"This is as close to Forks as we should go," said Peter, "Out of respect for the Cullens. We need to do some hunting."

"Peter gets moody when his eyes pass burgundy," joked Charlotte. I smiled and gave her a bear hug.

"This has been really wonderful," I said. "Would it be okay if I came to visit you guys sometimes? It's nice to talk to someone who knows me from the old days, you know?"

"Nothing could give us more pleasure," said Peter.

"I hope you will," said Charlotte, handing me my bag. I took it and walked away at a human pace.

I had made it about a hundred yards when the screams began.

I gritted my teeth and tossed my bag into the underbrush, then turned around and waited under the overhang of a low cliff.

Twenty minutes later, Charlotte came crashing through the trees toward me. She must have broken through the wolves' perimeter.

"Charlotte?" I exclaimed. "What is it, what's wrong? Where's Peter?" She was screaming at me to run, that we were outnumbered, there were enemies right behind her. I grabbed her hand and held it tightly. "Hold on," I said. "Stay calm. What happened to Peter? Why did you separate?"

She made awful gagging sounds, like she was trying to cry.

"Wolves," she wheezed—breathing hard from panic, not necessity. "The shape-shifters, the wolves, they've turned on us...Run, we must run, we're in danger, come _on_, Renesmee!" She tugged frantically at my hand but I dug in my feet.

"We're not in danger," I said soothingly.

"They've already killed Peter," she shrieked hysterically. "Even now they are burning his corpse! There are too many to overcome and you say we are not in danger—"

"We aren't," I said more calmly than I felt. "You are." She looked through the curls and the headband and the penny loafers and saw _me _for the first time. Her nostrils flared.

Then she picked me up and threw me as hard as she could against the rock face. I felt a crack, followed by an icy white numbness down my whole right side. I managed to keep my eyes open just long enough to see a dozen wolves swarm over Charlotte's tiny body and tear her into ribbons.

* * *

When I came to, it felt like I was lying in a fire. My right arm and leg were wrapped so tightly in heavy canvas bandages that the extremities were turning blue. I blacked out from the pain almost immediately.

I woke again. I was in Jacob's bed, in the tiny house he'd built on his father's property. He was sleeping upright in his chair beside me, his head tilted precariously to the side and a thin line of drool on his chin. I tried to laugh at the picture he presented but instead I vomited over the side of the bed.

My noisy effusions woke Jacob. He leapt forward and crouched beside the bed, holding my hair away from my face, stroking my neck and whispering nonsense in my ear. I worried that the smash against the cliff had addled my wits until I realized he was singing a little Quileute song, a familiar one from my childhood. Hot tears mixed with the vomit on the floor. My eyes and throat and sinuses stung terribly.

"Did we get them?" I croaked.

"We got them. You did great, Nessie. We never nabbed two bloodsuckers so quick. It was all thanks to you."

"What happened?"

"We surrounded them. The big one stepped in front of the little one, like that would protect her, and he got several new assholes for his trouble. We had a little fire going, just like you said, and as soon as the little one saw us throw the guy on it she ran. We didn't expect her to be so fast, she took out Kyle's achilles' tendon and broke away, but we caught up to her at the cliff just in time to see her fling you on to that spike."

"Spike? What spike?"

"She threw you right on a column of basalt. We thought your spine might be...injured." Jacob's voice cracked a little as he said this, but he looked me in the eyes as steadily as ever. "I killed her myself. They're dead. It's done."

"Was anyone hurt?" This time Jacob looked away. "Jake? Who was hurt?"

"The big one...before we got him down he, he got Lisa's front leg."

"What do you mean, he 'got' it? Is she okay?" Jacob shook his head.

"We can heal, but we can't regrow things."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Her right arm is gone. He threw it on the fire as soon as he got it off her. It was damaged too much and now—the whole thing was over in ten minutes. She won't be able to phase again. I mean, she can phase, but what good is a three-legged wolf?"

"Oh my god," I said. "Lisa, poor Lisa. What's she going to do? Oh god, this is all my—"

"Don't you _dare _say this is all your fault," Jacob said, low and dangerous. "This is their fault. They're the bad guys. Don't you dare forget that."

I wanted to throw up again but there was nothing left to come out. I pictured Lisa reaching out to catch the Corona I'd tossed to her in my house in Vancouver.

"So I guess she's a leftie now," I said dejectedly. Jacob let out a mangled sound that could have been anything. "I want to go see her. Say thanks, and all that."

* * *

Lisa didn't want to see me much. She shook off my apologies like blackflies. I spent a lot of time drinking with Leah.

"I keep seeing Charlotte when I close my eyes. I called her 'Aunt Charlotte', did you know that?" Leah snorted. "Well, I did," I said. "It was just one of many things I did to get her down here. I mean, I used to call her that anyway. If she hadn't been with Peter she might have been able to give up human blood, I bet."

"You're obsessing. Drink more." Leah passed me the bottle of tequila—official drink of the young and stupid. I felt very much of both right now.

"I dressed up in all these stupid childish dresses so she wouldn't know anything was up. She was all making plans and stuff."

"Plans?" Leah said sharply.

"Just between us two. Not like, with my family or anything. I don't think they'll find out any time soon. Peter and Charlotte only visit them every five years or so, if that. That's a long enough time for something to happen. Vampires get in fights with each other all the time. I don't think they'll find out. Any time soon."

"So, how was it, playing double-agent?"

"Not fun. Everyone thinks I'm just sooo adorable." I sneered and put on a sing-song voice. "'Oh, look at little adowable Wenesmee! What a widdle sweetie! Does she talk? Does she _talk?_' It's absolutely sickening. That's why I like you guys so much, you just treat me normal."

"Like a nice, normal hellspawn. You did good, widdle Wenesmee." I swatted at her head. She ducked. "So, am I going to get to meet the boy toy?"

"Nah," I said morosely. "I'm gonna break up with him." If any good thing could come of this awful nightmare, it was that I no longer had any illusions about Chris. He didn't belong in my world; I could see that plainly enough. I touched Leah's arm and showed her Chris, intimidated by the wolves' presence in our home.

"Huh," said Leah. "I see your point." But before I could pull my hand away I thought about Aunt Charlotte again, dancing with me to the Beatles in my bedroom in St. John's.

Leah passed me a fresh bottle.

* * *

I put off returning to Vancouver for months, because that was how long it took for the nightmares to stop.

I broke up with Chris over the phone. He accepted it, maybe because I wasn't wafting my wiles under his nose this time. I knew it was a cold move, but I didn't have the energy to maintain a long-distance relationship that was doomed anyway. I couldn't go back to Vancouver until the nightmares faded, because I couldn't risk Edward reading my mind while I was dreaming about Charlotte's dying moments.

Charlie pulled double-time comforting me. He had no idea what had happened to upset me so much, but he was very good at wordless back-pats and offers of bacon. He didn't eat the bacon himself, what with his high blood pressure. And his hair was almost completely grey now, with only a few streaks of brown left. These reminders of his mortality did nothing to raise my spirits; if anything, I felt guilty that I wasn't around for him more. We watched what seemed like hundreds of soccer and basketball games on TV, but I wasn't really paying attention to the action, just trying to memorize these moments together. Charlie got more and more terse as he aged, but I didn't care. With Billy and with Jake and with me, he said exactly as much as he needed to. I was happy just to sit in companionable silence with him.

After months of this, getting Leah-therapy (drinking and bitching, mostly) and Jake-and-Charlie-therapy, I was ready to go back. Jacob ran with me in wolf form to the border. He held me for a long, long time and breathed warm humid healing air onto my hair.

My family didn't suspect a thing.

* * *

I spent the next few years dividing my time between my family in Vancouver, and Charlie and the wolves down in Forks. I sometimes spent as much as a month down there, patrolling at night and fishing with Charlie or goofing around with Jake during the day.

The Cullen girls celebrated my eighteenth birthday with an extravagant weekend at a spa in San Francisco. Bella tried to dig her heels in about going with us, but Alice pointed out that it was a gift for me, and she should just be gracious for once. It drove the spa attendants crazy that the water my aunts were lying in cooled off so quickly.

The fall after I turned nineteen, Charlie died. All the Cullens went back to Forks for his funeral. I'd known I would outlive Charlie but I didn't see it happening so soon. Alice did, though. She saw the heart attack the hour before it hit, and we made it to Forks just in time to sign the forms for his cremation. I felt sorry for Bella, who couldn't cry. I felt sorry for myself, who could.

Jacob stayed by my side all through the funeral, his arm pressed against me, warming my numb body like a radiator. He quietly accepted condolences so I wouldn't have to try to speak very much.

Afterward, I told him I had to go for a walk. I wound up in Billy Black's front yard. Billy was on the porch ahead of me, still in his dark funeral clothes, his chin sunk down to rest on his black polyester lapel.

"Come here, young lady," he said raggedly. I sat on the swing and listened to him while he told me every memory he had of my grandfather. After a while Jacob drove up and sat beside me, put his arms around me as usual, and played with my hair. Everything felt too _much_. Charlie was the first family member I'd ever outlived. I supposed Renee would be next, since she was the only mortal family member I had left, but I'd never been close to her as I was with Charlie. She didn't even come to the funeral.

Charlie left me his house. I looked anxiously at my mother when the lawyer read out the will, but she shook her head.

"He always got along better with you," she said. "It's right that you should have it." She and I sat for hours on Charlie's bed, breathing in the smell that now could only ever fade.

* * *

The year after that, I visited Jean again. She had popped out three little monsters and warned me that as soon as I had kids my boobs would never be the same, but the orgasms got better so it was up to me.

"Thanks," I said. "Good of you to leave me a choice, Jean."

"I have no idea how you still look like that. You know what, I wish you _would _get some stretch marks and maybe start failing the pencil test. I look like I could be your mother. When are you going to show signs of aging?" I didn't tell her the answer. I already knew our final visit was coming: I couldn't pull off "well-preserved but aging" much longer, not when I was supposed to be in my early thirties already.

* * *

Only a few months after this, I got a call in the middle of the night from Leah.

"Get your ass down here," she said tensely by way of hello.

"Leeches?" I asked.

"No," she said, "William," and I realized she sounded tense because she was trying not to cry. "He had a stroke and he's in the hospital and Elizabeth's not leaving his side and he probably won't ever get out of there alive..." She stopped talking then and started to make this terrible horking noise into the phone.

"I'm so sorry, Leah," I said, totally at a loss.

"It's not me, it's not me," she said, still making that godawful keening noise. "I'm her alpha, I can feel everything she's feeling and she's really fucked up... Nessie, you have to get down here."

So I did. And Leah'd been right: William didn't get out of there alive.

Elizabeth came to the first fifteen minutes of William's funeral and then ran out of there like her hair was on fire. Some of William's family gave her furious looks for this, but we all knew where she was: losing herself in the wilderness, losing herself as a wolf.

"Why does everyone keep dying?" I sobbed irrationally into Jacob's armpit. He had no answer.


	17. Livin' The Dream

**Hey, guys! So, we are really approaching the end now! I have to slow down posting to probably no more than one per week, because some parts aren't finished yet. But that's okay, because these last few chapters will see an upswing in Jake and Nessie interactions which may prove...interesting. Thanks for all your wonderful reviews. I really appreciated the feedback and constructive critiques! Keep 'em comin', lovelies!**

* * *

When I was twenty-one, my family had to relocate. We moved to Astoria, Oregon, and I went on splitting my time between them and the packs.

In Astoria, I agreed to join Rosalie and Emmett as seniors; there was no way I could do freshman or even sophomore classes like the others, looking the way I did. It was way more fun than I'd expected, especially with Rose and Emmett's hijinks. I even volunteered for the art department of Rose's production of Easy Virtue and helped Esme design all the sets.

And I got a kick out of pulling rank on my parents, who were both two grades below me.

The most interesting part of this senior year was an elective anthropology class taught by Mr. Alban. There were two reasons I loved his class: first, it was easily the most interesting class taught at the high school, and second, Samuel Alban was a stone fox, with his glasses and his scruffy non-beard and his curly brown hair and those foxy white button-downs he wore with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He was young for a teacher, only twenty-five or so, fresh off his PhD and therefore still under the impression that it was possible to get teenagers to care about cultural anthropology.

Emmett caught me staring at the teacher during a lecture and shot a balled-up note at my head. It read, _I can hear you drooling. Hot for teacher? _Then he made a vulgar hand gesture and winked. I blushed furiously and refused to speak to Emmett for the rest of the day.

"So, Em tells me you have a thing for Sam Alban," Rosalie said while climbing into the front seat of my Phaeton after school. "I bet your dad's gonna love that."

"Not a _thing_," I said with dignity. "I just want to have sex with him, that's all."

"Well, are you gonna?" she asked reasonably while I peeled out of the parking lot, leaving Emmett in the dust as he tried to open the door. I waved at Emmett's shrinking form in the rearview mirror. He could have caught up with us in an instant but instead wisely elected to bum a ride home with the others.

"I don't know," I said thoughtfully. "Maybe. I probably shouldn't."

"He is pretty tasty," Rosalie agreed. "Not my type, but for a nerd like you—"

"You want me to pull this car over?" I said grumpily. Rosalie just snickered.

* * *

I could tell from such signs as elevated heart rate and dilated pupils that Sam Alban was not immune to my charms; and for once I had a crush on a guy who was actually near my age. But I didn't want to get him fired, or slammed into a locker by my overreacting dad—not to mention that he didn't seem like the kind of teacher who would go for a student, even a student who was born within a year of him—so aside from a vivid fantasy life that involved a lot of after-school detentions, I didn't give in to my wicked little urges. I knew he liked me, because I was one of the few students who really got into in-class discussions. And he thought I was smart for a teenager. He enjoyed my essays.

I found the whole thing faintly silly, like some big role-playing adventure. I began to understand why Alice thought repeating high school was so great: it was fun to walk around with a secret identity, fun to watch all the dramas and heartbreaks and teenage triumphs unfold around me without being personally invested in them. I pretended I was an anthropologist studying the elusive Teen Hipster Tribe, all full of white middle-class kids trying to grow ironic facial hair and wearing clothes that didn't fit.

In the last week of school, all the liberal-arts teachers held student evaluations. I primped especially carefully before my fifteen-minute session with Sam Alban, wore my most coral-y lipstick and my blackest mascara and my prettiest blue sweater.

"Have a seat, Carlie," he said when I entered his office. I mentally flipped through a dozen different ways this meeting could go, and discarded the most pornographic as being hugely unlikely. I could probably get a date if I tried hard enough. I felt older than this man; well, that was only natural. I was already a crime-fighting college grad by the time he was hitting puberty.

"Hey, Mr. Alban," I said brightly. "How'm I doing?"

"You're in good standing," his mouth said. _Pitter-pitter-pitter_, his heart said. _Flush-flush-flush_, his blood vessels said. _Daaaamn, girl_, his eyes said. "Here's your final paper on the present-day state of indigenous tribes of the Pacific Northwest." He slid my essay across the table to me, carefully not letting our hands brush. The paper was heavily notated in red, with a big fat _A _at the top. "Do you want to go over it while we're here?"

"Not really," I said, moistening my lips ever-so-subtly with my tongue. "Unless you had any comments."

"You seem to know a lot about the Quileute tribe," he offered. "I wouldn't ordinarily accept papers with so many first-hand references, but they were all relevant and you cited them correctly, so..."

"Yeah, yeah," I said. I'd interviewed Jacob and Billy and Sue Clearwater for my paper. Jacob had wanted to know why I was leaving out all the good stuff, like the supernatural ability to turn into wolves. He accused me of writing a paper I could have just researched on Wikipedia. "I have some Quileute friends," I added.

"Well, I enjoyed having you in my class this year," he said warmly. "It was nice to have at least one student paying attention."

"That's what you get, teaching at a public school."

He smiled.

"Mr. Alban," I said, "Can I call you Sam?"

"Okay," he said. "Since you're about to graduate anyway..."

"Yes, that's exactly it," I said. "I'm about to graduate." He looked at me expectantly. To his credit, he was quite successfully suppressing the biological response to me. I could hear him forcibly regulating his breathing. I leaned in a few centimeters and heard his breath catch. "Sam, this was my absolute favorite class," I said.

"Thank you. Glad to hear it."

"I'm really going to miss you." He swallowed. "Maybe we could get coffee this summer and talk about...anthropology."

"Ahh, I'm not really..." He looked around at his tiny office.

"I'll email you, okay?" I said.

"Um..."

"So that's settled, then."

Sam Alban looked anything but settled.

* * *

Rosalie and Emmett took me to New Zealand to surf the big waves after graduation. When I got back, I emailed my no-longer-teacher.

_Sam_, I wrote. _How bout that coffee?_

He met me at a coffee house far from school.

"How's your summer going?" he asked me, still halfway stuck in Interested Adult mode.

"It's fine," I said. "I went to New Zealand to surf."

"I didn't know you were a surfer," he said.

"Yeah, I'm into surfing...skiing...cliff-diving...basically anything that the human body was not evolved to withstand."

"So you're a thrill junkie," he said, smiling.

"Yup," I said. "But I'm pretty hard to kill."

"Well, that's the whole point of dying, isn't it?" he said. "Everyone's hard to kill, until they get killed. It only happens once."

"Does it?" I thought of my mother's wasted face before she turned, thought of Charlotte's second death. "You'd be surprised." But Sam laughed like I was kidding.

"So, what's up next?" he asked, taking a sip of latte. "Do you have college plans?"

"Nah," I said carelessly. "I've already done college."

"You have?" he asked, puzzled.

"I took some college classes before transferring here," I clarified. "I'm done with school for a while. I'll probably just bum around Astoria for a while, waste my youth, all that good stuff."

"That sounds like fun."

"Speaking of wasting my youth," I said, "There's a pretty good concert next weekend in Portland. You ever listen to Red Rooster?"

"I love them," he said enthusiastically. "I used to listen to them when I was in high school."

"So did I," I said. He laughed. "So, wanna go with me or what?"

"Um...I just have to ask..." he said, as one reluctantly doing his duty. "How old are you, exactly?"

"Exactly?" I echoed. "I am exactly eighteen and nine months and...four days. And some odd hours and some odd minutes. About that concert..."

"Yeah, okay," he smiled.

* * *

The concert was fucking awesome, of course. We drove there in my Phaeton; Sam was appropriately worshipful of my car. I caught him clutching the seat with one hand, although I couldn't know if that was because he liked the feel of the leather (it _was _awfully lush) or because I was driving forty over the speed limit the whole way.

Although I would have liked to join Sam in a beer when we reached the venue, I figured I was pushing his sensibilities as far as they would go already; if he saw me underage drinking (as he supposed) it would probably break him. But we shuffled closer and closer all night, letting the crowd push us together until we were right on top of each other. I stood there enjoying the music and Sam's smell and the heat off his body.

When the band finished their encore, I spun around, flung my arms around Sam's neck, and planted a kiss on his cheek beside his mouth. Sam froze for a split second, and then he moved his lips an inch to meet mine. He tasted like beer and happiness.

We stood there for a long time kissing, while the room emptied out around us.

* * *

"Carlie," Sam said a couple months later, after all talks of _is-this-acceptable-is-this-allowed _had been concluded to our satisfaction, "I find it hard to believe you're only eighteen."

"Almost nineteen," I corrected.

"Your whole family seems so mature," he went on. "Your siblings... I just found out I'll be teaching Edward and Bella this semester." Oh, _perfect_.

"I'm only related to Bella," I said crossly.

"That's right," he said. He'd accepted the old standby that I was Bella's sister and that the others were related to us only by adoption. The truly awkward moment had been when he joined my family for dinner a few weeks after we started dating. He was nervous the whole night, not because he was surrounded by vampires but because he was nervous about Carlisle and Esme judging him for dating an ex-student. He needn't have worried; I had already poured my heart out to Esme about how wonderful Sam Alban was, and my father heard me thinking about him a lot. The Cullens were all predisposed to like him, because I did. And I was certainly old enough now to make my own decisions about who to date. Edward was even relieved I was dating someone so..._cultured_.

The only thing they didn't realize was that I was falling in love with Sam. Every new thing I learned about him made me love him more. He was so intelligent and he liked really good music, and he had silly playful moments as often as he had heartfelt, tender ones. I couldn't admit to my family, or really even myself, how I felt about this man. I was paranoid that as soon as it got serious, something awful would happen, like he would realize what a nutjob I was or figure out the supernatural thing.

On my birthday, I visited Sam during lunchtime at school. I nodded to friends and teachers I passed in the hallway on the way to his office. They all asked me what I was doing back there.

"Just have to clear something up about my transcript," I lied pleasantly.

I walked into Sam's office silently, let him hear me close and lock the door. He looked up from the papers he was grading and the half-eaten sandwich he was ignoring, and smiled.

"Happy birthday, beautiful," he said, standing up to give me a hug.

I shrugged out of my coat and let him see what I was wearing underneath it.

"Who...whose birthday is it, again?" he asked, distracted by my nipples: his office was not warm.

"Mine," I said. "I want you to give me a little...present."

"_Ghlp_," said Sam.

"Exactly," I said.

* * *

Jacob insisted on meeting Sam, obviously. I brought Sam up to Forks for Christmas holidays. Jacob and Leah came over to Charlie's—no, _my _house, and had a grand time making veiled references to supernatural creatures. And Sam, against every expectation life had taught me, wasn't threatened by Jacob. I was flabbergasted by this: Jacob didn't do anything differently, kept up the usual rough-housing and intimate silliness. I watched Sam anxiously the first day, especially after the involuntary full-body hug that Jacob and I shared when we saw each other, and there was nothing, nothing at all, to betray the slightest unease.

Jacob teased me for dating a teacher. Leah told me to _Live the dream, Nessie_, whatever that meant. And when we went back to Astoria, Sam told me he'd had an awesome time and wouldn't mind seeing my rez friends more often; he wanted to pick their brains about the tribe.

* * *

Heartened by Sam's acceptance of Jacob, after a year together I told him an abbreviated version of my life's tale. I didn't mention vampires by name, but I showed him my gift (he'd begun to suspect, as Jonathan had before him, that there was something weird about me). When he took my gift in stride, I told him that I would never age, that none of my family would ever age. Even this he accepted, eventually. He accepted Edward's mind-reading. He accepted Alice's visions and Jasper's emotional voodoo. He accepted me and everything about me: my speed, my strength, my immortality, my freaky family, my imprint. He was such a goddamn keeper, afraid of nothing.

I adored him. When I was with him, I didn't even think about Jake. That was how I knew it was serious. When Edward looked at me shiftily until I whined at him to just tell me what was on his mind, he admitted that he'd been listening to Sam's mind, and that Sam had been thinking the M-word for a while now. Weeks. Months, even.

Marriage.

I told Edward to stay out of my boyfriend's head, but I couldn't be angry at him. If Sam ever asked me to marry him, knowing what he did about me and my family, I knew I would say yes. In my dreams, he grew old by my side and I loved him at every age. In some dreams, he sparkled in the sun and his eyes glowed golden. Sometimes, I woke up with his hand in mine, and knew that we'd been sharing dreams. He always gave me a kiss before he rolled out of bed to get ready for work. He kissed my fingers every time I sent him a picture.

I seriously considered doing what I'd told Charlotte years ago I wanted to do for Chris. I didn't voice this thought to Sam or to anyone else. But I didn't like how vulnerable he was as a human, and I didn't like that he wouldn't be around forever.

* * *

For once, it wasn't the imprint that submarined my relationship with a guy. It was me, all me.

Sam wanted children and I didn't, not yet, maybe not for another hundred years.

"So not with me," he said angrily.

"It's not about you, it's about...I don't think I'm ready for the possibility that I will outlive my children, Sam!" I couldn't even handle Charlie dying, and he was my _grandfather_. "There's no precedent for this. I don't even know if I can _have _children."

"So we try. We try, and if we fail we try adoption. This is important to me, Carlie. I'm meant to be a father, I've always known that. And you, you would make a wonderful mother, I know it. Is this never going to change? Does this end with one of us permanently dissatisfied?"

"I just can't do it, Sam. I won't. I don't want to have kids. I'm too young to have kids."

"Well, I'm not." He looked worn and weary. "I can't commit to this thing in the hopes that someday you'll change your mind." And, just like that, we were breaking up. I couldn't believe that after all the things about me he was willing to live with, _this _was what broke us. I railed against him to Alice and to my mother, hating him for wanting something so badly when I didn't, hating myself for loving him still.

Finally there was nothing left to stay in Astoria for, so I packed the things I couldn't live without and hit the road at sunrise. When I reached the Forks town line, my phone started buzzing.

"Hey, Jake."

"Hey, pretty girl. I don't know why but you were on my mind. You doing something dangerous?"

"No," I sighed. "I'm on my way to Charlie's. Can you come meet me?"

"What? Yeah, of course. I'll be there soon. Hang in there, 'kay?"

When I saw him walking up the driveway, each of his strides as long as two human ones, I broke down. My best friend, my ray of sunlight made human. My legs couldn't hold my weight and I sank to the porch; but of course Jake caught me before I hit the floor.

"I'm done dating humans," I sobbed, "_Done_! Never again, they always just...oh, Jake, you'll never leave me, right?" I asked hysterically. "Please say you'll never leave me, I hate being left behind..."

"Shh, Nessie, shh," he soothed. "I won't leave you behind."


	18. Pissy Exhausted Werewolf Asshole

**Hey, guys! Thanks for reading! Things are getting tense around the ole werewolf homestead these days. If y'all are real nice about reading and reviewing, I have an alternate POV of this chapter that I'll post when the story's done. How's that for motivation? Thanks to my fella for beta-ing.**

* * *

After I moved permanently back to Forks, things returned quickly to a routine I recognized. I sat with Jacob at Emily's bonfires and hung out with Claire Young and Elizabeth when I wasn't on patrol. Lisa had a prosthetic arm but she rarely used it. She claimed having a stump instead of all those vulnerable phalanges and carpal bones made it easier for her to hit the guys when they got out of line.

Leah had me running in her pack's patrols like nothing had ever happened, and of course we spent hours together loafing and drinking and generally abusing our bodies. As a child, I never would have guessed that one day Leah would be among my closest friends. She was so bitchy and brusque and intimidating. But she knew me better than almost anyone else alive, knew of the terrible things I'd done that even my parents had never guessed, and still she loved me in her own peculiar way. She knew how easily I turned on the charm, knew that I used my smile to trap men like some wanton libertine. She certainly must have guessed that my frustration and longing for Jake drove most of these pursuits, and not once did she judge me.

All she said when I returned from Astoria was, "You know what your problem is? You fall in love too easy. You'd fall in love with the goddamn mailman if he had all his teeth. You need to start being more angry and bitter."

"Like you?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Exactly," she answered, beaming. Then she punched me in the clavicle. A punch from Leah was the same as a hug from anyone else.

* * *

One of the oddest things to get used to back in Forks was seeing Quil and Claire. They were together all the time, but they weren't _together_ together.

Claire lived up the street from Quil and his wife, and she was the only person they ever asked to babysit their children. I didn't understand how Annie, Quil's wife, could live with a man imprinted on a twenty-eight year old who lived a scant hundred yards away.

But when I finally came by for some of Annie's famed cornbread and saw the three of them together, I knew: Quil had always been a big brother to Claire. There was nothing to cause Annie jealousy. The relationship between her husband and his imprint had never even gone in that direction. They were as close as if they'd shared a womb, but no one who saw them together could mistake them for lovers. It astonished people how un-scandalous they turned out to be. Boring, even.

Claire rejoiced that she and I were close in age again. "Even though I know it won't last," she said. "You know, I remember when we used to play on Billy's tire swing. You wanted to go fast but I was too scared, and Quil always had to get me down so Jacob could push you as high as you wanted. I don't remember much about it, but I remember the tire swing."

I remembered exactly, down to the exact number and formation of dirt-streaks on her face that day. When I was a little baby, she took care of me, petting my hair and offering to share her dolls; and by the following spring I had surpassed her too much for us to play as we used to, and I had to move up to the next age group of Rez kids, and then the next. But for that one fall, bleeding into winter, we were the same age. Now we were again and, again, it wouldn't last.

These thoughts were no good for me. It reminded me of Elizabeth, watching William grow older, loving him passionately to the end. Jacob had been right: she couldn't give up phasing, and she couldn't give up William. The whole thing depressed me. With Elizabeth and William there had been none of this pussyfooting around that happened between me and Jacob. She wanted him, he wanted her. Hell, they fell into bed the first night they met and the imprint took. They snagged every minute the universe offered them and they wrung it like ripe fruit, straight into their mouths. There was no time wasted between them.

And here I'd been secretly longing for Jacob, who loved me but didn't _love me_ love me, for twenty-odd years, always afraid to say anything because I knew I had time, maybe next year he would look at me the way I looked at him. Who wanted to spend eternity stuck in a friendship ruined because of an inequity of feelings? You couldn't put the toothpaste back in the tube. And so on, and so on. I was such a coward.

And next year turned into two decades so fast. What if I came to the end of eternity and I'd still never balled up enough to jump Jacob Black's glorious bones? I'd deserve whatever shitty afterlife I got stuck in, for being such a lily-livered waste of space.

* * *

Most of my time was spent in considerably more pleasant ruminations, or no ruminations at all. Claire was blithe and genial and good with kids, and she made a good drinking partner because when she got drunk she had a filthy mouth. She and I sometimes brought little two-man plays that her kindergarten class wrote for her out to the woods with several bottles of Trader Vic. Most of the bottles were for me; I had to drink the stuff like it was water for it to have any effect at all on my blood alcohol levels. But she could plod away slowly at one rum and Coke, gradually making the simple little plays more and more hilarious with her ad-libs and analyses, until I rolled around laughing on the twiggy forest floor. She never actually sounded drunk, with all the slurring and stumbling. She just sounded sharper and lost that desk-side manner that made her irresistible to kids.

"And then the blue unicorn who is named Pacey said 'I love you' to the regular horse who is named Brown Henrietta. And then Henrietta told Pacey what he could do with that horn of his."

"Your students are nasty! What the hell do you teach them at that freaky school?"

"English, Quileute and how to recognize sexual fetishes masquerading as children's stories. Kidding, kidding! I don't actually teach them Quileute, Teacher Alison does that."

"Well, you are a sick freak. I'm onto you."

"Yeah, yeah, get in line, baby. Hey, I have to go finish grading these retarded-ass plays. I think Purple Pacey and Horny Henny might get an A. B for effort, but A for at least including unicorns. The rest of the stories are about firemen and zoos. _Snore_."

"Pacey's blue, not purple," I murmured. Claire laughed and took a bow.

I wandered back through the forest at a slow and easy fifty miles per hour. I swung by my house to change into clothes that didn't stink of armpits and the pile of deer shit I had drunkenly trod in. I put on black cigarette pants and a fitted, forest green, short-sleeved sweater that Alice had dug up at an estate sale somewhere. It had little yellow-and-black bumble bees embroidered around the jewel-neck collar, with tiny bugle beads for stingers. I was in love with this top. My family had more money than the pope and I still wore the same green sweater twice a week.

After a change and a few hearty helpings of singed lamb, I headed back out. As so often happened, I found myself at Jacob's place without noticing how I'd gotten there. Billy's diabetes had ravaged his system in the last few years and he was now in permanent care—he refused to acknowledge that it was a nursing home, because he said nursing homes were for old farts. But Jacob paid him two-thirds of the list price on the house and he signed the deed over. No one really thought Billy would ever leave that nursing home.

By this point in the evening my two bottles of rum had more or less worn off, alas, but maybe Jacob would have more. I'd been drinking with Claire since she left work and I wanted to keep the good stream flowing.

I heard Jacob before I saw him, swearing colorfully at a recalcitrant transmission. He was in the garage, and I could tell by the smell he was going _mano a mano_ with that damn 2006 Mustang again. He hated that car. He hated all American cars, but Fords especially, and Mustangs _especially _especially. He called them cock cars minus the cock. I didn't understand why he kept messing with it. It had been scrap when he bought it, and it was scrap now. But he hated to admit defeat, even on a hoopty.

I knew better than to barge in on him when he was like this. Plus he had no booze in the garage. I whistled a snatch of some Simon and Garfunkel song on my way in so he'd know I was here. When he was ready to leave the garage and get drunk with me, he'd know where to find me: plopped on my stomach in front of his tv, giggling at the antics of Wallace and Gromit and wondering at what point today I'd forgotten to put on a bra.

"'It's cheeeese, Gromit!'" I squealed as he clomped up the front steps and came in.

"Hey Ness," he said as he went straight for the heavy-duty charcoal soap in the kitchen. "Been drinking? Lemme find a clean glass and I'll catch up."

"Kay!" I giggled. "I love Wallace and Gromit! Gromit doesn't talk, but, and this is the best part, he _doesn't have to_. Because he's English, see?"

"Clear as kidney stones," he said bemusedly. I got up and bounded into the kitchen. Jacob turned and gave me a wry smile. "I hate that stupid car," he began.

"Oh, fie, young one, all you need is a hug." Jacob laughed and held out his arms. I rocketed into him with a thud. It was always rather difficult to subdue my bodily urges when he was looking like this, all covered in grease, no shirt, his 108 degree body melting the air around him till it slid down his abdominal muscles like butter down a...

Oh, _my_. And _especially _difficult when buzzed. I covertly let a hand scrape down those muscles under pretext of stepping away to grab the bottle of rum. They might have been carved from walnut, they were so hard and smooth and those red undertones really _got _to me somehow...

"God _dammit_!" I heard, followed by the shattering of glass. I whipped around to see drops of blood welling up from Jacob's right hand and a clean glass lying in clean fragments on the clean floor. "Fucking shit ass hell crap!" Jacob hissed as he ran cold water over the cut. I stood there uncertainly, one hand on the neck of the rum bottle, wondering if I should sweep up the glass or just let it go. I settled for crawling under the kitchen table and watching him as he wrapped a towel around the injured hand. This was unlike Jacob, he so rarely got pissed off at small things like this. The cut would be gone in twenty minutes and none of his glassware matched anyway. I didn't understand why he was so edgy. That damn Mustang was more trouble than it was worth.

"Sorry, Ness, I—hey, where'd you go?"

"Under here," I said, climbing out and brushing red fur off my black pants. Damn, maybe this floor wasn't as clean as I'd thought.

"Sorry. I think...I've had a long day, I have to call it a night." He started for his bedroom.

"Jake, wait—" I went after him and placed a hand on his back. I felt the trapezius and deltoid muscles sliding around under his skin and forgot what I was about to say. I peeked into the gap between his jeans and the small of his back and had a sudden urge to stick my hand down there and root around. Just as I was debating whether he would notice me fondling his ass crack, he shook my hand off his shoulder. Gently, briskly, like the twitch of a horse to rid itself of a horsefly. "Okay...well, good night, Jake. Love you." My voice sounded very small suddenly.

"G'night, Ness. Love you back." He went into his bedroom without turning around and snicked the door quietly closed, and I went home in a daze, wondering if I'd done something wrong or if the car was haunted or if Leah had said something stupid again.

It took me ages to fall asleep, and when I saw Jacob after a very groggy patrol he was smiling and happy again, and I chalked the whole thing up to One of Life's Great Mysteries and tried to forget about it. Hell, I sometimes had whole weeks where I couldn't stop dropping things or stubbing my toes on boulders and had to find new and more vulgar ways to express my feelings, so who was I to complain?

But this sort of thing was so unusual for Jacob that I started to worry. Once I noticed it the first time, I saw it happening more and more. He'd always had a temper, but his temper had previously been reserved for things like vampires and whiny young wolves and lack of sleep or food. Things with an obvious solution: kill the vampire, discipline the wolves, eat a snack, take a nap. He wasn't an irritable person, by and large. Or at least, he hadn't been before, but ever since I moved back to Forks from Oregon, he'd been all weird. These days, his ire rose at little bitty things that he wouldn't even have noticed a year ago, like getting cut off on the road and misplacing his keys. One night he threw a huge tantrum because he couldn't think of the name of a song that was stuck in his head.

It started out innocently enough. He'd come over for dinner at Charlie's—no, _my _house—with most of his pack. I made a veritable feast of the sorts of things I could make in bulk on the grill outside: burgers, hot dogs, brats, corn, bacon-wrapped chunks of pineapple the size of my hand. Seth had brought vast quantities of soda and beer, and Robbie swung by with six pans of brownies.

We all ate and joked in our customary way. I wrestled Dale—one of the newer wolves, he hadn't even been born yet when the Volturi were in Forks—for the last bratwurst, and since the rule was that he couldn't phase I won. Claire showed up and drank her weight in Dr. Pepper, then talked at hyperspeed for the rest of the evening, all buzzy from the caffeine. When the sun got low we all trekked out to the rock beach to get a fire going and toast sweet things and drink more beer.

Seth and Jacob started singing Carpenters songs at the top of their lungs for some reason. I couldn't tell if they were doing it ironically or not. They segued fluidly from "Top of the World" to "Superstar" and got everyone singing on the chorus. Jacob had a good voice, untrained but flexible and strong. The party broke up after that, because nothing could possibly top Seth's impassioned, full-body performance of "Rainy Days and Mondays."

Jacob and Claire volunteered to help me clean up a bit. It was very late and we were all tired, so I let Claire off the hook at one on the grounds that she had work tomorrow. She gave me a hug and a kiss, and crunched down the dirt-and-rock driveway in her ancient Mercury Sable. Jacob cringed at the sound the transmission was making.

"Here, help me with this charcoal," I called to Jacob. "I just have to get it all in the garage before it rains and then I promise we can stop, I'll do the rest tomorrow." Jacob hefted three giant bags of it effortlessly onto his shoulders and strode off to the shed, whistling merrily. I tried to shake some of the sand out of my hair and bathing suit so I wouldn't track it all over the house, but it looked like a lost cause. "Hey, I'm gonna grab a quick shower, kay?" I heard a noncommittal grunt from the garage, where Jacob was probably poking around the engine of my Phaeton. He wouldn't find anything that needed fixing, but he always looked anyway.

I peeled off my clammy bathing suit and dropped it just inside the back door, then scurried into the shower. The hot water felt delicious after being in the cold, late-summer seawater. I even went all-out and gave my hair a perfunctory wash because it was starting to smell algal. I toweled off quickly and slapped some lotion on my prickly legs, then threw on undies and a ratty t-shirt that had somehow survived the Nineties. It wasn't mine; I didn't really know how it had ended up in my house but it smelled like Jacob and he was the only person I knew who would ever admit to having liked Rush. I padded downstairs to the living room, where Jacob was flipping through channels on the TV. I had about six hundred channels, but I had blocked most of them except the movie channels and the ones that had documentaries because I didn't like all the shitty reality shows.

"If you're looking for porn, try Adult On Demand, but you're probably better off on the laptop unless you like watching sixty cum-shots in a row." Jacob spun around, his tan skin darkening ever so slightly when he saw me.

"I wasn't!" he said quickly.

"Hey, is this your shirt?" I asked, lifting the ragged hem a little and inspecting the constellation of holes that made it more cheesecloth than clothing. "How'd it get in my bathroom?"

"I probably left it last time I showered here. That or you're a dirty sneaking thief." He still looked a little guilty. His mouth was pulled into a tight little line and his eyes darted around, settling anywhere but on me.

"Relax," I laughed, "I don't care if you watch porn in my living room. I wasn't born yesterday. Everyone watches porn. _I _watch porn. I'm not going to call out the Inquisition."

"I wouldn't expect it," he said cheekily, his color returning to normal. It boggled my mind that he still thought I would be offended by his desire to see naked ladies. I'd been a _stripper_, for pete's sake. It took more than that to shock me.

"Hey, check it out," I said, trying to change the subject so he would stop looking all evasive, "You're not wearing a shirt and I'm not wearing pants. We're opposites! Ooh, no offense or anything, but those jeans look like they served in Korea." I caught sight of his expression and stopped. He definitely looked pissed. I held up my hands in a gesture of peace. "Sorry, sorry, I won't diss your crappy clothing anymore. I was only kidding." I plopped huffily down on the other end of the couch. He didn't usually take my jabs so personally.

"Wanna watch this show on lichens?" he asked awkwardly after a very tense silence.

"Lichens? _Lichens_? Since when do you care about lichens?" I had to laugh. Jacob looked a little shifty again.

"Maybe if I found out more about them I would like them more," he said defensively. "You should give them a shot, you know. They're not bad for...whatever they are."

"They're epiphytes," I said automatically, tossing him a can of Dr. Pepper. I popped the top on another one and took a long gulp.

"Well, I guess you don't need a documentary on it, then."

"Here, put it on IFC, they're playing Shaun of the Dead."

"Ooh, goodie!" Jacob flipped the channel and settled back, looking a little more comfortable. I stretched out and we watched the film in silence.

After the movie I had to get up to pee. When I came back Jacob was looking disgruntled again, staring at the screen. He'd gone back to flipping channels and had stopped on a commercial for some shiny new Apple product.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

"I can't figure out what this song is," he said impatiently. "It's right there on the tip of my tongue, I just can't..." I listened for a while but it didn't ring any bells.

"What is that, the Beatles?" I hazarded.

"Not likely, although I guess if anyone can pay Paul McCartney's royalties Apple can. It's...it's...ugh, dammit all to hell!" He looked really angry now, disproportionately angry, his eyebrows drawn together and down over his eyes and his lips pressed so firmly they paled.

"Calm down, Jake, it's just a song, you can YouTube it or something—"

"It's just so frustrating," he said, jumping to his feet, his voice rising with every word, "I really fucking hate when that happens, you think you know something, you _know _you know something, and you just can't get it. Like, I know this song, I've listened to it a hundred times, I just have to reach out and grab it and I can't _remember_. Augh. Fuck!"

"Hey, Jake, come on," I said in some alarm. I tried to go to him but he stepped briskly out of reach. I felt hurt and foolish, standing there in my bare feet and sloppy hair and that ridiculous shirt. I'd never been unable to comfort him before, but I'd also never seen him get so riled up about something so stupid, either. "What the hell is your problem, Jacob?" He looked blackly at me and I fell a step back.

"Nothing," he said bitterly. "I just can't seem to get what I want. Not a problem you've ever had, so no need to worry about it."

I saw red. Before I knew what I was doing I leapt forward and smacked him, so hard across the cheekbone that his head was flung to one side. Jacob looked completely surprised; his hand went to the scarlet hand-shaped mark on his cheek, where a few droplets of blood were beginning to well up. I felt a bruise blooming in my hand. I'd really put a lot of force into it. I had never struck him in anger before. My heart was racing way faster than usual, pumping blood to my face, and—oh god, no, no—tears started to pool in my eyes. I blinked hard a few times and they were gone, replaced by a hot dryness that felt even worse. My throat hurt.

"Jesus, Nessie, you just gave me whiplash. I'm sorry I said that. I'm just annoyed about the song. I'll probably remember it at five in the morning and shout it at my pillow."

"Well, don't call me if you do," I snapped. "I don't feel like being yelled at by a pissy exhausted werewolf asshole." We stood there glaring at one another until Jake stomped out of the house. I heard the tear of thick denim and a thud as two front paws struck the ground and he took off at a dead sprint.

He left his car in my driveway. When I woke up late after a few hours of furious stewing and a few hours of restless sleep, the Rabbit was gone.


	19. Well, Shit

**Hey, guys! We are really creeping up on the big finish here. I really appreciate all the thoughtful, sweet reviews I've been getting recently. It really helps me as a writer to know what works and what doesn't; and it helps me as a human being to know you guys are enjoying this. If I could, I would slap each and every one of your cute butts. Instead, here's a new chapter!**

* * *

I didn't see Jacob till a week later. A week was a long time to spend in the same town without seeing each other. It was somehow harder than when we were a country apart. Once I got over my anger—well, mostly over it, where did that cocksucker get _off _saying shit like that to me?—I just missed him desperately. It didn't help that I had a sneaking suspicion he had a point.

"What's eating you?" Leah was hanging out in my kitchen with me while I made seventy-two peanut butter cookies, stage one in my one-part plan to get Jacob to talk to me again.

"Eh. Jacob. Fight. Asshole," I muttered.

"You already knew he's an asshole."

"Not to me, he's not. He just like, flipped his shit over some stupid thing. I don't even know where it came from."

"He was like that before he phased for the first time. You think maybe he's about to turn into an ultra-wolf?" she asked.

I snorted. "I hope not, I really can't handle him like this."

"I bet he wishes you would handle him."

I looked at Leah sharply. She was demolishing a spoonful of dough and didn't notice. "That's not funny," I said.

"Whatever. Just talk to him, will you? Elizabeth smelled a couple leeches this morning and I can't coordinate with him while he's being a prick. Can't you just let him out of the doghouse?"

"I didn't put him in the doghouse! He put himself there. He hasn't been returning my calls. If he wants to be a whiny little bitch that's his business."

"He's making it everyone's business. Please? Just give him a hug and bat your eyelashes and he'll be normal again. God, I hate it when imprints fight. It fucks everything up."

"Yeah, I'll talk to him. Don't get your hopes up."

* * *

Jacob was still patrolling when I showed up at his house. The latest batch of leeches were tricky and determined, and we were having trouble figuring them out; everyone was pulling double shifts.

I had another hour or so before Jacob finished patrolling, so I settled in for a wait. I flipped through some big old photo albums he had from his childhood. There were pictures of his parents: Sarah, young and pretty, Billy on his feet. He got his looks from his mom. They both had the same perfectly clear, reddish-tan skin stretched over high, narrow cheekbones, the same long nose, the same almond-shaped eyes with irises so black the pupils were lost. And they shared that radiant full-face smile that went up a millimeter higher on the left side. But Sarah was small, five feet at most. If she were alive today she would barely reach her son's elbows.

I turned a page and there was a picture of my mom, smiling in the sunlight with Jacob, human and young. The little date printed on the corner of the photo was 2006. Things had already started to go to shit between them, but she looked happy anyway, because it was hard not to smile when Jacob had his arm around you.

The rest of the photo album had been filled up with snapshots of me. There were some pictures of me with the Cullens, but mostly pictures of the two of us together. There was a copy of the baby picture I'd shown Jonathan years ago, looking ragged and well-thumbed around the edges. At the beach, Jacob holding my little toddler hands so I could balance on a log of driftwood. Later, playing on swings with Claire. Beaming and messy with muffin batter in Emily's kitchen. Grinning furtively from behind the wheel of the Rabbit while Jacob gritted his teeth against my fumbling gear changes. Then a long gap and finally, the last in this album, a snapshot Alice had taken of us at my graduation. I hadn't been aware of anything but him at the time, had never seen this picture before. I was in his arms, my legs wrapped around his waist, looking so beautiful in my white silk dress which glowed angelically against his black t-shirt. His fingers were threaded through my long hair. I looked like a young person desperately in love. He didn't.

I fell asleep on his couch with my fingers on that picture.

When I woke up, the light slanted through the windows at a sharp angle and I was cuddled up against Jacob's chest. I hadn't felt him pick me up. He was dozing but he snapped awake as soon as I moved. He gave me a long, sleepy smile and wrapped his arms more tightly around me. I sighed and nuzzled his neck.

"I'm sorry, pretty girl," he whispered.

"It's 'kay. Are we happy again?"

"Always." He kissed the top of my head and we sat there like that for a long while, long enough to get hungry.

"I brought you cookies," I said at last. "A peace offering."

"A peace—" Jacob started to laugh. "You brought _me _a peace offering? You weren't the one being a dick, Nessie."

"Well," I said slowly, "I hate to admit this, but you were a little bit right." Jacob looked like he was about to say something but I pressed on. "Things do happen easily for me. I mean, a lot of things do. I need to learn how to handle not getting my way all the time." Otherwise I was going to die of girl blue-balls.

"Well, I'm still sorry I said it. I was angry, but I wasn't angry at you, okay?" he said. I nodded. "And you know I can't say no to cookies," he added.

I crawled off his lap and brought back a gallon-sized ziploc bag stuffed with the greasy things. He was watching my every movement closely, with little traces of something on his face—nostalgia, or regret maybe.

He did seem happier, at least. "So, did you get rid of that car?"

"Huh? What car?"

"That damn Mustang. I feel like it was a bad influence on you. Bad karma. You've been more edgy since you got it and now you're being all wonderful."

"Yeah, I'm gonna ditch it. There aren't really even any parts I can use. I might just crush it into a cube and bury it in the woods."

"Vampire-style!"

"Yeah." He was silent for a moment. "So, what about the latest ticks, huh? Have you been in on that?"

"A bit. What do you know?"

"Well, don't freak out or anything, but...it looks bad."

"It always looks bad."

"They're slippery, been acting a lot like that redheaded one did, the one that targeted your mom back when she was human..."

"Victoria?"

Jacob shrugged. He didn't like to even acknowledge that leeches had names. "We've found at least four separate leeches on our territory, and they've been incredibly evasive. Like, they really know what they're doing. They aren't blundering around at all, which is alarming enough as it is, because it means they want more than just a feed or a fight."

"What do they want?" I asked.

"Well, that's what we have to find out."

* * *

Leah gave me a simple directive: _Check out the leeches without getting caught_. I stopped running patrols because after the initial flurry of trespasses there had been not a trace of leech near Forks. They were staying away. If we were all idiots maybe we'd have breathed a sigh of relief, but we weren't idiots. We knew they'd come back and we needed to know more about them before they did.

I spent days running with Jacob through the wilderness on the Olympic Peninsula, both of us flaring our nostrils spastically in hopes of catching a scent. When he had to go back to the rez for pack business, I carried on alone. One afternoon I was following a cold trail into the mountains when suddenly it got real hot, real fast. Reflexively I leapt straight up into a tree, but there was no one around. I tracked the scent in the canopy as long as I could, leaping nimbly from tree to tree, dangling from branches to get closer to the scent and make sure I was still on track. I wasn't actually any safer in the trees than I was on the ground, because leeches could climb and jump as well as I could, but being surrounded by leaves and coniferous needles gave me a pleasant illusion of security.

Eventually, I reached the treeline before a little rocky clearing at the base of a cliff. I stayed in the trees and surveyed the scene before me. The cliff face jutted out a little, creating a natural overhang that provided some shelter. I could see that the ground had been disturbed a little, but it was so rocky that there were very few prints. The smell of leech was very strong here. I closed my eyes and breathed deep, tried to sort out the individual strands of scent that wafted up toward me from half a mile away under the cliff. I could have left the cover of the trees but for the first time in a long time, I was nervous to be out in the open. I sprang to a tree that was well downwind of the little camp and waited, my fingers and toes digging into the bark of my tall pine, memorizing the smells.

It was hours before they came. The leeches arrived in ones and twos, silently, moving like shadows over the dusky ground. I strained my eyes to see them through the darkness: a young pale girl, a Japanese man with a topknot, a woman of many years with sleek gray hair that flew out from her temples. A middle-aged, grey-haired male, a diminutive Scandinavian-looking man, a smooth-faced African woman with dreadlocks down to her waist.

I was completely baffled. Was this some new coven? None of them behaved like mates as they converged on each other and began talking, too quietly for me to hear from my perch in my faraway tree.

Suddenly, the short blonde Scandinavian man stiffened, touched the wrist of the Japanese man, jerked his shoulders once. The Japanese man looked in my general direction, but I was definitely hidden. I knew the limits of vampire sight, and no way could he see me from this distance, in the dark, through the branches of a tree. I could barely see him and he was standing out in the open moonlight like a chump.

So why did I feel so terrified all of a sudden? A wall of black, primordial terror hit me like the first wave of a tsunami, dark and churning and totally beyond rational analysis. I clung frozen to my branch, unable to look away from the group, as the black-haired asian searched the trees for me. He was looking too low, he was searching for me on the ground, not in the canopy. _Just don't move, Ness,_ I told myself.I was so incapacitated by fear that I almost fell out of the tree and gave myself away. _Don't move and he won't see you, don't...don't.._.

And he didn't. After a while the Scandinavian spoke to him again and he turned back to his companions. Then I heard him start to laugh, deep, confident belly-laughs. My nerves, stretched tight and quivering like a string on a bow, snapped, and I leapt away from them, to the next tree over, then the next. I traveled for miles in the tree tops, chased by that man's unnatural laughter, and it wasn't until I reached the edges of the rez that I was willing to drop to the ground and run normally.

When I reached Jacob's front yard I was going too fast to properly slow down, and I dug two long gashes into his front lawn as I skidded to a stop, doubled over on myself and took a head-dive into the grass. Before I'd even regained my feet, he was bursting out onto the front porch, jumping over the railing and landing in a crouch by my side, one burning hand on the small of my back.

"Nessie," he said, "What is it? You feel all wrong—"

"I found them," I said, "and I don't know why but they are really fucking scary, Jake, like, oh god..." I trailed off and leaned into his arms. My fingers gripped reflexively around his lower thigh muscles and I showed him the last couple of hours. He grunted in recognition at a few of the leeches, but I felt a shudder go through him when I relived the spike of terror that had hit me when the top-knotted Japanese man looked into the treeline.

"Shit, Ness," he said hoarsely. "If that was just the memory..."

"Something is wrong with these ones. Oh, _Jake_." I curled up on the ground. Jacob grunted in alarm and hefted me in his arms, then carried me into his house, where he deposited me on the couch.

"Listen," he said in his alpha voice. The voice didn't work on me the way it worked on the wolves, but it was steady and reassuring which was what I needed right now. "You are feeling fear because that leech made you feel fear. It's not real. It's his power. You are safe because you are here with me." I stared dumbly at him. "Say it back to me, Ness. Say it now."

"He made me feel fear," I said faintly. "I'm safe with you."

"Damn straight, sweetheart," he said, back in his normal, human, Jake voice. "We should call your family. They might know more about these guys."

I yanked out my phone and called Carlisle with trembling fingers. He picked up on the second ring.

"Hello, Renesmee," he said pleasantly. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"We found some bad guys," I said, and I knew my voice was still shaking. "They're acting weird, like Victoria did before."

"Renesmee," Carlisle said urgently, "Are you in immediate danger?"

"No," I said. "Just...can you come out here? There are six of them and they look pretty serious. You might recognize them. I found them in the interior of Olympic National Park, so avoid that. Carlisle..." I wanted to say something childish like _I'm scared_, but he knew that already from my voice. "Can you come soon, please?"

"We'll be there in the morning," he said firmly. "Stay with the wolves; we'll call as soon as we're close." I hung up.

Jake ruffled my hair, got me a pitcher of water, and stayed by my side for the rest of the night.

* * *

We met my family in the clearing that served as neutral territory. By this point the effects of the leech had subsided and I was more freaked out by the fact that he could do that to me at all. I didn't scare easily, and while I wasn't immune to the powers of the various vampires I'd hunted through the years, this was the first one that had made me want to throw in the towel, albeit only momentarily.

I spotted Rosalie and took off at a run toward her. At the last second I noticed the hurt look on my mother's face and swerved to embrace her first. I saw Jasper frowning at me.

"What's up, Jas?" I asked him.

"Your emotions are...all over the chart, little miss," he said slowly, as though confused.

"Can you level them off?" I asked, suddenly very nervous. He didn't say anything, but after a moment or so I felt some of my anxiety drift into the back of my mind, where it belonged. I heaved a sigh of relief, partly because I was feeling more or less normal again, and partly because Jasper's gift could apparently countermand Top-Knot's power. A good sign.

"Well," he said. "That was unexpected."

"That was Top-Knot," I explained. "I did recon on a group of lee—vampires, and one of them did that to me. It was a lot worse last night, but Jake helped a lot."

"Renesmee," said Carlisle, "I think you'd better explain exactly what you saw."

"Here," I said. "Everyone give me a hand." My family reached out and put their hands together. I made sure to get skin contact with all of them and then showed them the previous night. I'd already done this with the wolves; Leah was pacing impatiently behind me, eager for the recon to be over with so we could get to the planning stage, and then the rending and burning stage.

My family stayed quiet for the duration of the replay, but I could see their eyes flickering toward one another. I cut the memory off at calling Carlisle; no need for them to hear what a baby I'd been on the phone.

"You guys recognize any of them?" Jacob asked.

"Some," said Carlisle. "The Japanese man, the little girl, the middle-aged man and the middle-aged woman. I haven't personally met the blonde man but I can make an educated guess. The African woman I do not know."

"We know the African chick," put in Rosalie. "Well, not _know _her know her, but Emmett and I crossed paths with her on a hunting trip in the Swiss Alps a couple decades ago. Her name's Dayo."

"What do you know about her?" asked Jacob.

"Not a lot," admitted Rosalie. "We ran into her and her mate, ran together for a couple of nights. But she has kind of a weird power. She makes you feel thirst."

"Thirst?" Bella asked. "Like, human thirst, or..."

"I don't know, I didn't ask," said Rosalie. "Maybe both? We were just shooting the shit, her mate and Emmett had a wrestling match, and then she sort of dropped it in there, like, no one could ever stand up to her because she had this power. I guess probably she meant she could give us bloodlust if she wanted to. That's all I know."

"That's not much to go on," grumbled Leah.

"You got anything better?" Rosalie snapped. Leah just shrugged.

"Okay, so that's one," Alice said. "Carlisle, you said you knew the others?"

"Yes, I've met four of the others," he said. "The one who made you panic, Renesmee, was in life a samurai named Hisashi—" Carlisle was interrupted by a snort of laughter from Emmett.

"Was that really his name?" Emmett asked.

"It was one of his monikers, yes," Carlisle responded with a faint smile. "Ironic, isn't it?"

"Why is that funny?" Bella asked, confused.

"Because his name means, among other things, 'long-lived,'" said Edward, chucking his wife gently under the chin. "I told you you should have taken Japanese when we went to Harvard."

"If I may," Carlisle went on, clearing imaginary debris from his throat. We all looked at him expectantly. "Hisashi's lord was killed. Dishonored, he prepared to commit hara kiri. The first cut had been made, his second stood at the ready to lop off his head, when the smell of blood attracted a female vampire in the area. Drawn to his beauty and fierce courage, she killed his second and changed him. To his new life he brought two gifts: an inability to feel fear, and the power to inflict fear on others."

"Courage is hardly a unique trait among vampires—" Edward began a little huffily, but Carlisle cut him off smoothly.

"Courage—if such it can be called—is usual among vampires, you are right. Whether it is truly courage when one belongs to an infinitely strong minority is a debate for another day. _Total, absolute fearlessness_is another thing entirely." I thought of Charlotte as she pled with me to flee the wolves, and of my father's voice, heard through the womb as he begged my mother to save herself from me, and I knew Carlisle was right. "The Volturi despise Hisashi for this very reason: he is totally ungovernable. But they dare not destroy him, because they still hold out hope that someday he will turn his talents over to them. In this I believe they are mistaken: he has always been alone. His sire, I believe, meant for him to become her mate, but I have never heard of Hisashi seeking or accepting companionship in any form."

"Okay," said Leah. Her pack, with the exception of Elizabeth, were all in wolf form, prowling around and listening to our conversation. The same went for Jacob's pack, with Seth on two legs as beta. "Now we're getting somewhere. Top-Knot has fear, Dreadlocks has thirst, which may or may not apply to humans but probably does. What else you got, Doc?"

Carlisle winced at Leah's politically incorrect nicknames, but went on without comment. "The child is named Eliza. I've met her and her mother many times."

"Mother?" asked Bella. "Not 'sire'?"

"Both," said Carlisle. "The mother was turned shortly after giving birth and, once she recognized the infant as her own, wished to turn it also so as not to be tempted to bite it. Her sire warned her that so doing would bring about her destruction, and the child's, at the hands of the Volturi, for this was after the law was passed forbidding the creation of immortal children. The mother raised Eliza until she was just old enough to be controlled, which appears to have been between the ages of four and five. At this point she changed her, and proved to be the only creature known to withstand Eliza's power."

"Which is?" Jacob prompted.

"The child can fill her opponents with a sort of...oh, emotional weariness," said Carlisle. "Her enemies, no matter how strong, are overwhelmed by the feeling that they cannot hold out against her. She wins every fight without having to lift a finger."

"Perfect," Leah said, rolling her eyes. "Sounds like a four-year old to me."

"I have never seen her apart from her mother before now," said Carlisle. "They were exceptionally close; though she was turned nearly two hundred years ago, the mother never took a mate. They were an unbreakable coven of two."

"Apparently not," muttered Elizabeth. Leah reached out lazily and whacked Elizabeth upside the head; betas weren't supposed to talk in a meeting like this without permission.

"The grey-haired female was named Flora," Carlisle told us. "I know little of her life but I do know that her power is to induce hallucinations."

"Like what I do?" I asked.

"Not exactly. You can invent images or share memories, but you must have skin-to-skin contact in order to do so. She can transmit images at a distance, but she can only make her victims relive their own experiences. She cannot, for example, share a memory of her own with another person. She has honed this skill enormously, if what I hear is to be believed. It is said that she habitually makes her victims relive military service in war zones, depression, childbirth—anything that might disarm them. If nothing else is handy, she can always make her victims relive their own births, which is a terribly traumatic event for both mother and child. Needless to say, against vampires her skill is formidable: I hear she forces her opponents to relive their own change." All of the vampires shuddered at this.

"So she's the living personification of PTSD?" Rosalie asked, horrified.

"Hardly living," Elizabeth said, earning her another, harder smack from Leah.

"Yes," said Carlisle. "The only creature for whom she ever induced pleasant memories was her mate." The mate who wasn't with her anymore. We all saw the pattern. The wolves didn't tend to keep track of which leeches they'd wasted, but it didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened to Eliza's mother, or Dayo's and Flora's mates.

Damn.

"The grey-haired man is named Linus. He has the power to make his opponents feel powerful, wracking guilt. In fact, he has worked with Flora many times before, because their powers are so coactive. I shudder to think of the damage that can be done between him, Flora and Eliza."

"So, who's the last one?" Alice asked.

"I can't be certain, never having met him in person before, but I suspect from his appearance and behavior that the blonde man is Magnus Rasmussen. He senses intentions."

"Like Alice?" Bella asked hopefully.

"Not quite. If I am not mistaken, he is more like Edward. I must stress that he does not actually read minds; he cannot listen to your thoughts as Edward does. However, while Edward can, with sufficient care and self-control, be lied to, Magnus never can. I don't know if his powers allow him to see images or hear verbal thoughts, or a combination of the two. All I know is that he can sense exactly when and what someone hopes to accomplish." I thought of the way Hisashi had laughed at me as I made my escape, like I wasn't a threat. Well, if Blondie really was Magnus Rasmussen, he would know I was only there for recon. Either that or Hisashi laughed because he was a crazy son of a bitch who feared nothing and no one...

Jacob was talking. I tuned back in. "So, we've got thirsty Dreadlocks, terror Top-Knot," he said, ticking them off on his fingers, "Tantrum Tiny, PTSD Old Lady, guilty Old Guy, and intentions Scandi."

"Can't you remember their names?" Alice asked scornfully. "Or is that too much for you?"

"We don't bother memorizing a whole bunch of names we're just gonna have to forget again," said Jacob, flashing his teeth impudently at her.

"Enough," I said, flicking both of them with my fingers and telling them with the gesture to _shut up_. "You guys, this is terrible. We have them outnumbered, but almost any of them can disarm us faster than we can attack them. What are we going to do?"

"We'll need to work together on this," said Alice.

"Obviously," said Elizabeth.

"Ugh, if you can't shut up then PHASE," Leah roared. Elizabeth glared round at us, then burst out of her clothes and into wolf-form. The other wolves gathered around her, raising their noses to hers.

"I may be able to counteract Hisashi's and Linus's gifts, maybe even Eliza's," offered Jasper. "And can't Bella tune out the other ones? Why don't we just do some selective shielding? Let them into the shield one at a time, pick them off like that?"

"Yes, and I'm sure they'll just stand in line waiting for their turn," said Emmett. "C'mon, Jas, they'll be all over the place. The wolves said they've been darting around like flies. Unless Bella can shield the entire reservation...and Forks...and all of Olympic National Park..."

"I _might _be able to," she said uncertainly.

"Bella, love, consider—" Something in my father's voice snagged my attention. I glanced at him quickly.

"You are going to help us, aren't you, Dad?" I rarely called him 'Dad' anymore. He looked at me guiltily.

"I think it might be best if we try to find some peaceful—"

"If you say 'peaceful solution' I am going to rip your fucking hair out," I said coldly. My parents stared at me. So did everyone else.

"Renesmee, language!" scolded my mother feebly.

"You guys _are _in, right?"

"Nessie, my darling" said my father, going for the sentimental angle, not knowing that I hated when he called me _darling_, "You didn't kill their mates. It's not you they want." I took a step back, toward the wolves, staring at my father with wide eyes. It was like I'd never seen him before, I'd always known he had shaky morals but this, _this—_

"The fuck?" I said dumbly. "Are you really suggesting this?"

"Edward, think about what you're saying," Rosalie said sternly. "In many cases Nessie _did _have a hand in the deaths of their mates. She's been working with the wolves for almost twenty years now." My parents gasped. Even Esme looked a little nauseated.

"I thought you gave all that up," said Edward. "I thought..."

"You always knew where my allegiance lay," I said without thinking, then wanted to slap my hand over my mouth when I realized how it must have sounded. But I couldn't very well take it back, because it was the truth. They'd always known it, even if they didn't want to face it. I was half-vampire, but my human half was bigger. And I was all Jacob's.

I could hear the wolves growling and snapping their teeth. To my family it probably sounded like meaningless wolf noise, but to me it was a clear message: two snaps for _yes_, over and over, repeated in fifteen razor-toothed mouths. The wolves knew me better than my own family did. They understood me and I understood them. Even if the leeches weren't out for my blood, I was out for theirs, because they were a threat to the wolves.

_My _wolves.

* * *

**What do you think? Does Eddie-boy have a point? Whose side are YOU on?  
**

**Most importantly, couldn't you TOTALLY go for a gallon-size ziploc bag of cookies right now?  
**


	20. Battle

**Disclaimer: things get a little dark and scary at points from here on out. There is character death (PM me if you need to know whether it's someone you like before you commit to reading it. I wouldn't blame you; once I read a whole fanfic that ended in the death of a character I loved and I cried for like, WEEKS) and some scenes of gruesome, graphic, exciting violence.**

**On the plus side, things are moving along. You know what I mean. I hope you'll find it in your hearts to review me, even though I am a horrible mean dastard for what I've done to poor *blank*.**

* * *

Rosalie and Emmett joined us immediately. Alice couldn't see what was going to happen because of wolf involvement, but she was used to that by now, and Jasper seemed confident that he could seriously disable at least two of the leeches, maybe more. Carlisle hemmed and hawed about "keeping the peace." Eventually, he very reluctantly admitted that he couldn't in good conscience partake in this fight, but that he would do all in his power to help us prepare. Considering what I knew of Carlisle, I supposed I should just be glad I was getting this much from him.

Bella stared anxiously from Edward to me. He didn't ask her opinion, and she didn't offer it. She just waited passively for his decision.

"Renesmee," he said at last, "I have never condoned this lifestyle. I can't condone it now." My eyes were bugging out as I stared at him. Even Bella looked a little surprised by this decision.

"But, Edward—" she began.

"But nothing," he said. "There are only six of them. With their numbers, the wolves should be able to take care of this problem by themselves. I refuse to take part in something that goes against everything I believe in."

"But..." I sputtered. "You went after Victoria when she was hunting Mom, and that was for the same reason! You stood against the Volturi—"

"Bella did nothing to provoke Victoria. And we had no choice but to face the Volturi; they were coming for us through no fault of our own. But this, you _chose_ this. You chose to associate with the wolves when it was never your fight in the first place. I believe it was the wrong choice, and I would be a poor father indeed if I bailed you out now. What kind of message would I be sending?" The wolves all growled deep in their throats.

"Edward, what are you—" Bella tried again, distress on her lovely face.

"If this were a real danger," he cut in smoothly, "You know that I would not rest until I had seen you safe. But the wolves outnumber the vampires by more than two to one. You should never have involved yourself in these matters. You should not involve yourself now."

"You hypocrite!" I shouted. "The wolves stood with you when the Volturi—"

"They were protecting themselves," said my father. "They were in as much danger as we were, after Irina exposed them to the Volturi." So now my father was making the wolves out to be self-serving? How divorced from reason could a man get?

I had nothing to say to this. My mind was made up.

* * *

We planned to fence them into a secluded part of the park they were hunkered in now, so they wouldn't come near Forks or the rez again. Jasper would work on disabling the three vampires that worked on emotions, if possible; if he couldn't disarm all three of them, he would just focus on Hisashi, since his gift seemed the most powerful and threatening. Alice would stay near Jasper as a guard. Everyone else would fight. We hoped we could subdue them with sheer numbers, but it was hard to ignore that they simply had more powers than our side, powers better suited to battle.

The vampires practiced constantly for the next few days, running drills, wrestling all-out to get ready. The wolves and I stayed up as long as possible and slept as little as we could without sacrificing performance. I followed the wolves through the forest, listening for the tooth-snaps and growls that were meant for me, stretching my legs and trying as hard as I could to become one of the pack. When Leah dismissed me for rest, I crawled into Jacob's bed and smothered myself in his bedding, too tired to run or drive to my own house. Once or twice he was able to crawl in next to me and pass out for a couple hours, but most nights I didn't see him at all.

During this time I became more and more worried about Elizabeth. She hadn't recovered well from William's death a few years before. She was testy with her alpha, downright aggressive toward the Cullens, and bitter toward me. But Leah kept teaming her up with me for some reason, maybe because I couldn't hear her angry internal monologue and lash out at her. I did seem better able to handle Elizabeth's outbursts than the wolves. We ran patrols together a few days in a row. After our third day of patrolling, she phased back to her human form and stalked grumpily away from me without a word.

"Elizabeth!" I called, running to catch up to her. She started pulling on her shorts and glared at me.

"What?"

"What are you going to do?" I asked her seriously.

"What are you talking about? I'm gonna go home and take a nap, then run some more goddamn patrols." Done with her shorts, she turned away again. I reached out and grabbed her by the upper arm, and she twisted out my grip.

"No," I said firmly. "About William. What are you going to do about William?" Her eyes narrowed and she sucked in a sharp breath.

"Did Leah put you up to this?"

"Leah didn't put me up to anything," I said, which was more or less true: Leah hadn't explicitly told me to talk to Elizabeth, but she was obviously pairing us up for a reason. "But you're not exactly filling the rest of us with confidence, you know."

"You don't know what you're talking about." She turned away again.

"'You don't know what you're talking about," I mimicked in her gruff voice. She stopped and spun slowly to face me.

"Do you really want to get into this?" she asked me incredulously, like she couldn't believe I was so stupid.

"You're angry," I said. "If you're gonna be angry, be angry for real. No more of this shitty pissy crap, at least not until we get this job done."

"Nessie," she said, shaking like a leaf, "Shut your trap or I'll shut it for you."

"You miss William. You'll never replace him. You'll never want anyone else. Do I still not know what I'm talking about, or am I getting close?"

Elizabeth lashed out and punched me right in the face. I didn't avoid it, even though I saw it coming, because she looked like she needed to punch _somebody_.

"Shut up," she said, reeling back to punch me again. I slapped her fist away.

"No," I said. "I'm right. You know what I think? I think you were never supposed to be a werewolf. I think you imprinted right away because you were supposed to give up phasing right away, but you didn't, you were _selfish_, you wanted it _all_—" I didn't really think Elizabeth was selfish, certainly no more selfish than I was; but nothing else was getting through to her. If she went into this fight in the state of mind she'd been in for the past year, she would get herself and others killed. "If you'd just stopped phasing when you met him, like you were _supposed_ to, you would be an old woman now, you'd be human again, and if you were a human maybe you could handle it, and if nothing else you could look forward to—" I didn't get to finish my sentence, because Elizabeth exploded into a wolf, sending fur and clothes flying. She went straight for my femoral artery, but I brought my leg up and kneed her in the throat. She yelped and jumped back, and we circled each other for a while. "Do you even enjoy being a wolf any more? William told me you loved it, you'd never give it up, but it doesn't look like it makes you happy now."

This time when she launched herself at me she didn't go for an artery, she just used her weight to press me to the ground. I struggled to shove her off me, but she met each attempt with teeth and nails. It went on for a long time, ten minutes maybe, with me pinned and unable to get any leverage on her, with her unwilling to inflict real damage on me. She growled and snapped her teeth and I hurled obscenities at her.

"Why are you still doing this?" I shouted at length, when it occurred to me that we could stay like this forever if one of us didn't give in. The question startled her more than I thought it should, and she shrank back to human form, looking at me in surprise. I looked past her young, firm, nude body and into fifty-year-old eyes that were hollowed out from sadness.

"I don't know," she said quietly, climbing off me and giving me a hand up. I was bleeding from several lacerations, but I would have Carlisle spread spit on them to heal them quickly. Elizabeth had similar marks on her body, and they were already closing up, leaving nothing behind but sticky blood.

"What are you going to do about William?" I asked again, quite gently this time.

Instead of answering, she looked at me sadly out of the corner of her eye and said, "What are you going to do about Jacob?"

"What do you mean?" I said, too quickly.

She rolled her eyes. "Please," she said. "You get to have him forever. Or at least, until one of you gets killed, which, unless you fuck up this fight, won't be for a while. So why the hell aren't you two screwing every second of every day? You know you want to."

"Oh," I said awkwardly. "I...I don't think he sees me that—"

"Ugh," Elizabeth said disgustedly. "You're pathetic. I may be a bitter old bitch, but you're a pussy."

"Yeah," I said. "That's true."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "I'm gonna phase and run home so I don't have to walk naked through the forest." I nodded mutely and watched her sprout back into a wolf. She ran a few steps, then stopped and turned back to look at me. She executed a complicated series of tooth clicks that translated roughly to _You coming, slowpoke? I don't have all day._

I caught up with her and ran home.

When I saw Leah a few hours later, she slapped me on the back.

"Ow," I complained.

"I saw Elizabeth kicking the shit out of you," she said. "Wish I'd thought of it, but she won't attack me because I'm the alpha."

"Oh. How is she?"

"Her brain is so fucked up, who can tell? I think it helped, though. Maybe she'll be able to focus on the task at hand now."

* * *

Finally, we could wait no longer. The participating Cullens all hunted one last time, and Carlisle sprang for an enormous feast for the wolves. It wasn't a particularly jolly meal, though. It was obvious that the strange leeches were on a revenge mission, and that most of them probably weren't banking on surviving the fight. Since our scuffle in the forest, Elizabeth had settled down almost suspiciously fast, but all the wolves were fidgety and nervous, and I even saw some of my family members exchanging anxious glances.

We gathered for a pep talk but no one knew what to say. Jacob and Leah were putting on a great show of being excited and not nervous, oh no, not nervous at all. Eventually, instead of the rousing departure we'd hoped for, we just trickled into our places.

Jasper, Alice, Rosalie and Emmett ran ahead with several of the wolves. Alice carried a small medical kit in one hand, which she would hide up a tree before the fighting started. We hoped we wouldn't need them, but we weren't so stupid as to tempt fate. The rest of us would break up into two flanks and come at the group from the sides; the wolves that were already there would guide us in like homing beacons.

The run to the park's interior seemed interminable, but it really took less than an hour at the speed we were going. I knew the moment that the advance guard found the leeches, because Leah let out a growl and put on an extra burst. I was desperate to know what was going on, but with no Edward around to read her mind for me I had to find out the old fashioned way: by getting there.

Jacob's pack cut around to the east while we came in from the south. Before long we began to hear the clash of bodies. We broke through into a boulder-strewn creek bed where the fight had begun. Immediately I took stock of the situation: Jasper stood on a low plateau, statue-still, his eyes locked with Hisashi's, who stood with Dayo some distance away. Alice, Emmett, and Rosalie fought Eliza. I could see from their movements that it was a strain to keep going, but mechanically they went through the movements of leaping, clawing, biting. Eliza was badly outnumbered, but it was an even match because her power was causing all of her opponents to fight poorly. They were caught in a stalemate.

Leah and her wolves immediately went for Hisashi, but before they could get close I saw them all start to stumble. Dayo laughed victoriously and watched the wolves as they started to whine.

I swallowed a few times and then sprinted forward. As soon as I reached Leah and the wolves, I felt it, and it was horrible, perhaps worse for me than for anyone because I could feel two kinds of thirst: the regular parching kind that no doubt was tormenting the wolves right now, and a desperate bloodlust that I hadn't felt since I almost starved to death in the womb. I tripped over my feet and began searching for a source of water, as the wolves were doing. It angered me to see them snuffling along the ground like common dogs looking for treats, but the burning in my throat was too strong to pay attention to anything else. When Rosalie had mentioned Dayo's power I hadn't thought much of it, but in this moment I was almost completely incapacitated.

Almost. I gritted my teeth, grabbed Leah and one other wolf by the tail, and scrambled backward from Dayo. Leah snapped her teeth at me, but as soon as we crossed some invisible threshold the thirst was cut off abruptly and we could think clearly again. Leah brought her wolves around toward Flora.

Flora and Linus broke off into the woods, and we took off after them. After half a mile they dug in and tried to turn, but they were hedged in on all sides. That didn't matter to Linus, who kept ratcheting up the guilt the closer we got to him. I swung up into a tree directly above them and even as I climbed, I fretted: why had I put them all in danger, why had I called the Cullens? If I'd never been born the train of events that had led us to this dangerous place could have been averted. I mourned Linus's and Flora's dead mates, how could I have been so cruel as to break up families like that, it was all my fault, nothing was worth this...

I couldn't fight like this. I shouldn't fight. I deserved to die for what I'd done to Charlotte, oh god, Charlotte, Peter... I saw Flora's lips curl back from her teeth and then the guilt became a thousand times worse because I was no longer just remembering it, I was there, in the woods, I was there with Charlotte and she was begging me to _run_...

I lost my grip, slipped off the branch and fell directly on top of Linus. As soon as my weight hit him he threw me off, but the momentary lapse in his concentration had been enough to give everyone a split-second break. By the time I landed, the wolves had already swarmed over Linus and were pulling him limb from limb. This gave Flora a chance to break away, back toward the creek-bed where the real fighting was happening. I couldn't cut her off and I couldn't take her down on my own. I was still hearing Charlotte's agonized, panicked pleading, and so I did the only thing I could think of: I grabbed Flora's ankle as she fled and held on inexorably. She kicked out and I felt my mouth fill with blood as her rock-hard heel split my lip. But still I held, and as I held I thought new thoughts, mixed them up with the old.

_Charlotte deserved to die_, I thought. _As you do_. I forced myself to use my gift against her as cruelly as she used hers against me.

_What was your mate's name?_ I thought, picturing myself and the wolves cavorting around a bonfire that reached beyond even the tallest trees. _How did he die? Did he beg for his life? You scum do that, sometimes. I bet he begged_. A shadowy, indistinct male form was hurled on the bonfire and the clearing in my mind and hers exploded with light. She let out a howl of rage and misery._ I hope I was the one who killed him,_ I thought. _But I can't remember. He wasn't even important enough to remember._

She scratched at my flesh, leaving painful tears all over my torso, but I got my arms around her legs and clung so tightly she couldn't do more than hobble. She ripped out a great handful of my hair, and blood trickled down my scalp to join the blood at my lip, and then Leah's group caught up with us and did their work swiftly. I pulled a lighter from my pocket and put the flame to both Linus's and Flora's heads. We would come back for the rest later.

We sprinted back to the clearing. I looked around and saw Jake's pack chasing Magnus into the forest, just a step behind. As I watched, Emmett flicked a lighter on Eliza's head and then ran to join Rosalie and Leah's pack, where they had Dayo and Hisashi surrounded. There was a circle cleared around Dayo, its radius as long as her power would reach.

Then Alice saw an opportunity and darted in like a hummingbird. She cartwheeled over Hisashi and kicked out at Dayo. Stumbling away from Alice's blow, Dayo momentarily lost concentration, and it was over for her: hand-to-hand, she fought poorly. Leah's gang swarmed over her and had her head off in seconds.

Then, faster than anyone could have thought possible, Hisashi finally went into action. It was the first he'd moved this whole time, and he was mesmerizing in motion, as poised and elegant as a dancer. Fluidly he leapt onto Alice's back and wrenched her head from her neck while Jasper was still running forward. In the seconds before Jasper reached them, something glittered in Hisashi's hand: a brass cigarette lighter, a spark that ignited the venom dripping from Alice's neck. The flare lit up the dusky clearing, and Hisashi flung the blazing head at Alice's mate like a spectral comet. Jasper let out a terrible sound, and at once every feeling of determination evaporated from my mind. It was replaced instead with the cold dead fear that was Hisashi's gift, which Jasper had so far been able to keep at bay. I began to hyperventilate as the terror wrapped itself tentacle-like around my heart, blending with my natural fear and shock over Alice's sudden death.

"Help...Jasper, help..." I whimpered, crumpling on the ground with my arms around my head. I broke out in a cold sweat that mixed with the blood on my face and made my eyes swim. Every fear I had ever felt—of losing Jake or of losing my life—was nothing to this; every adrenaline rush as I chased down a leech was comparative calm. Death would be a blessing, if only I could die right now and end it, but I was too afraid that dying would be, somehow, worse... Distantly I heard whines and snuffles as the wolves clustered around Leah, heads bowed and tails tucked.

"Jasper, get it together—" Emmett barked out harshly, but Jasper was beyond hearing, beyond levelling off our emotions. He hurtled blindly at his mate's killer, his lips pulled back from deadly white teeth. Just as Jasper reached him, Hisashi sidestepped, darting out a hand and catching Jasper around the throat. Jasper twisted away from him, spluttering.

A charcoal-colored wolf—Elizabeth—broke away from the others and attacked Hisashi while Jasper was getting himself back into formation. The fear intensified, until all I could do was watch. Elizabeth darted around him, underfoot every time he tried to take a step, snapping her teeth and preventing his retreat. Leah and two of her wolves sprang jerkily over Jasper and wrestled Hisashi to the ground. With a movement too fast for even my sharp eyes to detect, Hisashi thrust his hand through the fur and flesh and sternum of one wolf, and snatched it back holding a fistful of heart. Then, before Leah could get her teeth around his throat, he twisted away from her and snapped the neck of the other wolf. Leah let out an anguished howl, swiped at him with one paw and missed. Both dead wolves faded back into young men as their lives left them.

Elizabeth jumped for Hisashi, feinting downward at the last second and shattering his ankle between her teeth. As Hisashi lost his footing, Jasper dove on top of him and tore off both his arms. The fear didn't let up for even a moment. Nothing could affect Hisashi's destructive power, not even dismemberment. Hisashi began to laugh lustily, the loudest sound in that death-filled clearing. Besieged by that unnatural laughter, I cowered with the rest of Leah's pack. Hisashi's fog of fear didn't break even after Jasper ripped his head off. He continued to grin soundlessly in Jasper's face, right up until his head was engulfed in flame.

The second Hisashi's head was ignited, I was released from the terror, making room for all the grief and shame and regret that clamored for my attention. I lifted a hand to my eyes and brushed away the bloody tears that had partly blinded me. Alice's body lay front-up on the ground, perfect, unburned, and now totally useless. Nothing more than a stone memorial. It looked so small without a head, tiny, child-sized...

I heard a movement behind me and whipped around: it was Jacob's pack, each of them carrying bits of Magnus in their teeth and dumping them on the heap that contained Dayo and Hisashi.

Robbie unphased as soon as he was in shouting distance. "We need a Cullen over here!" he hollered. "Seth needs medical help!" As soon as he'd said this, he phased and turned back to the forest. Rosalie'd just refreshed her MD a year ago, so I grabbed her by the hand and took off after Robbie at a sprint. She took a detour to grab the medical kit that Alice had hidden earlier. Having heard what Jake just shouted to me, Leah joined us a moment later in wolf form, a low whine in her throat.

We followed Robbie's trail into the forest. There was blood everywhere, spattered all the way up into the tree tops. I saw bits and pieces of wolf, gray and black, all mixed up with bits of young man, and resolutely shut my mind to the sight. Whoever was in pieces out here didn't need our help right now; Seth did.

"Seth!" Leah had unphased and now ran forward through the bushes to where Seth lay in human form, surrounded by his own intestines. Rosalie crouched beside him and gently but firmly pushed Leah away.

"Give me room to work," she said, not unkindly. Leah stood and chewed her lip till blood came, eyes riveted on Seth's still face.

Jacob unphased and stood with his arm around my shoulders, his naked skin steaming in the cold air. We both knew better than to touch Leah as she stood with her arms crossed over her bare chest. She was shivering, but not with cold.

Rosalie sterilized the wound as best she could, then tucked Seth's innards back into his belly and wrapped the lot up in clean bandages.

"This'll heal," she said, "But I want to get him to Carlisle before it does. I don't know if I put everything back in the right order and I don't want him to have to rip anything out to start over." Leah made a choked-off sound, but for once she had no snide comment to make.

"What can I do?" she asked tersely.

"I have to run him back to Forks," said Rosalie. "I'll carry him as gently as I can, but speed is the most important thing. You'd better phase and come with us." Leah nodded once and phased. The two of them vanished eastward, followed by Robbie.

"Jake," I said tiredly, "I saw the bodies back there. Who did you lose?"

"Dale and Matt," he said tightly. I put my arms around him. "Did you guys lose anyone?" he asked.

He didn't know, then, that Alice and two of Leah's were dead. I didn't want to face it but my mind's eye was unable to look away. Instead of speaking, I placed my hand against his cheek and pictured the battle with Hisashi. It had all happened so ludicrously fast.

Alice, dead, Alice, dead, _Alice_... This couldn't happen, how could Alice be dead, she was a _psychic_ for fuck's sake...

"Oh, God," I whimpered, "No, God no, nonono—" I buried my face in Jacob's shoulder, sobbing openly. He put his arms around me and squeezed me so tightly I felt a rib crackle, but I didn't care. Then he was planting kisses on my hair, my forehead, my dirty hands. He kissed the salty, bloody tracks that my tears had left on my face, and he pressed his mouth briefly against the split in my lower lip, as if he could kiss the hurt away. I balled my hands into fists so that I wouldn't transmit any of what I was thinking to him, because it was all too horrible, but gently he uncurled my fingers and pressed them against his face. He screwed his eyes shut against the wave of agonized thoughts, but he didn't let me go, and somehow it helped me feel less alone. We were each too hurt to mend the other, but we were all we had.

* * *

**Please forgive me, darlings. If you want to yell at me in a review, I would certainly understand.**

**As my man/beta said, "You write a much better fight scene than Stephen Hawking." So I guess I can cross that off my life list. ****What do _you_ think? Did you see this coming? Would you like to meet Hisashi in a dark alleyway? How do you think the Cullens will react? WHO WILL PLAN THEIR PARTIES NOW?  
**


	21. Funeral

**Thank you to everyone who reviewed my last chapter (including those who review as Guests, to whom I can't respond but I love you anyway). ****I thought it was really funny when a few of you suggested I kill off Edward instead of Alice. ****I won't say I ****_cackled_**** at your dismay, but there was some villainous hand-rubbing and I did pet a bald, red-eyed cat once or twice. I know it was a doozy, and we aren't quite out of the woods yet, but we're getting there. (Is it sad that I talk about this story like it's really happening? Actually, don't answer that.)  
**

**In case you didn't notice, for my birthday a few days ago I began posting a new story, Dreams of Jacob. I did this specifically with you, my long-suffering Slow Burn readers, in mind. You deserve a nice, un-death-y reward for hanging in there. Go check it out! And now, for something completely different.  
**

* * *

By the time Jake and I got back to the clearing, everyone had gone, even Leah's two dead ones. We followed their trail back to town. The trip back took hardly any time at all, or maybe I was just dreading what lay at the end of it. Twice I stumbled and fell; the third time this happened, Jake slid beneath me before I hit the ground, and carried me the rest of the way to the Cullen mansion.

We were the last to arrive. The wolves were in clusters around the yard, whining and growling and pacing, but Jacob carried me past them and into the house, where I saw Rosalie and Emmett forcibly restraining Jasper. Most of the furniture on the first floor was broken into smithereens. I could guess by the stiff way Edward held his right hand in place, the glisten of saliva that rounded his wrist, and the look of pure loathing Jasper leveled on him, how it had happened. Alice's corpse was laid on the sofa, the only piece of furniture to survive the scuffle.

"Renesmee," Edward said, and his voice was solid with grief and fury. "Are you happy now? This is what your moonlighting has wrought."

"Moonlighting?" I echoed uncomprehendingly.

"You just had to get mixed up in this, had to drag your family into it, and now Alice—"

"If you had _been _there—" shouted Jasper.

"We thought it was for the best," whispered Bella, hovering near me and placing one hand on my hair. I didn't feel like being touched by her of all people; when I thought about how much she could have helped us, how many lives she could have saved...

"Well, it _wasn't_," yelled Jasper. "If we'd had your powers on our side it would have been a _cakewalk_, it _should _have been—"

"This is not our doing, Alice knew what she—"

"We didn't know, we—"

"_You _made this happen!" Edward screamed.

"You _let _this happen!" Jasper roared back.

Jacob took my hand and led me outside. I could still hear the shouting as I crouched on the lawn and put my head between my knees. One by one the wolves came to me, touched their warm tongues to my face and my hands, pressed their bodies against me, and if I didn't feel comforted at least I didn't feel alone. I twisted my hands in their many-colored hides, remembering how much they had to mourn and trying to impart some sense of calm. Elizabeth hovered the closest, her hot, charcoal-colored body wrapping around me like a blanket while Jake in his human form rubbed my back.

"They'll hate me forever," I said hollowly. Elizabeth took my hand between her teeth and bit down hard enough to make my eyes water.

"They won't," said Jake, leaning into me. "This is _not your fault_."

"But I—"

"Snap out of it," someone said. I turned to see Leah standing on a second-story porch, her hands balled up into fists and a frightening look in her eyes; I hadn't even heard her come outside. "What would you have done differently along the way?" she demanded vehemently. "Would you have abandoned us when those assholes came after us? Never fought with us in the first place and abandoned the thousands of humans those leeches hunted for food? This isn't proof that you made the wrong choices, it's proof that you made the right ones."

"Go easy," began Jake.

"No, she's right," I mumbled. "Leah, how's Seth?"

"He'll make it," she said, "As long as his body can fight off infection. The Doc's got him patched up. He needs time to heal. We'll bring him home as soon as the Doc says he's okay to move."

"I'm glad," I said. Without another word she vanished back into the house to watch over her little brother.

"I'm so sorry about Matt and Dale," I began to say to Jake, but he shook his head and I stopped.

"I'm gonna have to go collect the...the bodies," he said hoarsely. "Are you going to stay here?"

"I'll help you," I offered. I didn't know what else to do with myself.

"You don't have to—"

"Let me, please, Jake? Let me come help you get the bodies." I couldn't imagine allowing him to do it alone.

"Okay," he relented. We climbed into one of the Cullens' vehicles and sped away.

We made it back to the clearing quickly, and then tramped through the bushes to pick up pieces of Dale and Matt by hand, trying to be as respectful as possible as we laid them on a tarp in the back of the Jeep. It was somehow the most gruesome part of this whole nightmarish day. I spent a lot of time dry-heaving, but only when Jacob wasn't looking. I needed to be strong for him.

Then we had to bring them to the rez, arrange them in the forest where Leah's pack had laid the other two casualties, call 911, pretend we'd found them after an animal attack, and bushwhack through a jungle of red tape. The sun was well down before we were free to go.

"Come on," said Jake. "I'll take you home." Not back to the mansion, not to Charlie's house, but to the rez. _Home_.

* * *

Jacob didn't even suggest that we sleep apart. I crawled into his bed and he crawled in right behind me, and we were both asleep before the blood had begun to dry on his sheets.

Waking up sucked. I'd had such lovely dreams, where Alice was alive and no one wanted to disown me. But I couldn't sleep forever. When I finally wrenched my eyes open, it was already early the next afternoon. I'd slept for twelve hours.

"Hey, pretty girl," Jake said softly when he heard me stirring. He'd been in the kitchen, but he came to kneel beside the bed. He threaded his fingers gently through the tangle of bloody hair over my right ear. He had an expression that I couldn't quite place, part-exhaustion, part-sorrow, part-something else. "You want some breakfast?"

I nodded mutely. I was famished. I knew if I didn't eat quickly, before I woke the rest of the way up, the reality of the situation would strip away my appetite. I scarfed a bowl of cereal and a few handfuls of bacon.

"Your family's been calling," Jake said gently. "I've been holding them off for you, but they want to know you're okay."

"Which ones called?" I asked.

"Rosalie and Esme called. Your mom did too, but Edward took the phone away from her before she could say much." Of course he did.

"Jake," I said, "We really need to talk." His eyes widened and he nodded, looking terrified. But I couldn't say anything else, because my breakfast was coming back up. By the time I had finished making a cereal-bacon-bile punch in Jake's kitchen sink, my phone was ringing again.

"Rose?" I said into the mouthpiece.

"Hey, baby girl," she said quietly. "When are you coming back? The shouting's over. We don't know where Jas is and we want to see you, sweetie. _I _want to see you."

"Is Edward still there?" I asked, more coldly than I meant to.

"No," she said. "We don't know where he is, either, but he said he needed to think. Bella's here though, and she's really worried about you. We all are, but we can't come to the rez, so..." She sounded so fragile that I became remorseful at once.

"I'm sorry, Rose, of course I'll come. Thank you for...for..."

"Any time," she said softly, and hung up.

* * *

Jacob had gone out to run patrols after only a few hours in bed with me, returning before I woke. Now he had to go out again, but he promised to come back in a few hours so he could be with me when I visited my family. While he was gone I took a long shower, and halfway through cleaning the dried blood from my still-tender scalp, I thought of what Alice would say of my raw bald patch. I started sobbing then, big heaving ones that didn't bring relief. By the time I got out, all the hot water was gone and I was shivering and goose-pimpled all over. I sat on Jake's bed, wrapped in his ratty bath-towel like a security blanket, drying off for a long time. I didn't even start to pull on clothes until I heard him walking up the drive. I felt numb and disconnected, cried out and miserable.

I met him in the doorway to the bedroom.

"Ready to do this?" he asked. I nodded. He folded his arms around me and rested his chin on the top of my head. I breathed in as much of his scent as I could, held it in my chest like a drug. I forced away tears and tried to smash my emotions into something resembling neutral, digging my fingernails into Jake's hip-bones until he grunted. I would cry again later, when it had a chance of doing some good.

On the way over, he let me drive, so I would have something to do with my hands. I drove the speed limit the whole way, unusual for me. I didn't want to get there.

Emmett met me at the boundary to Cullen land. He ran up beside the Jeep as I was getting out and picked me up for a bear hug before I even had my feet under me.

"Hey, Em," I said. "How are you doing?"

"So-so," he said. "They're all waiting inside."

"Why aren't you in there too?"

"Are you kidding me?" he said morosely. "It feels like a fucking funeral in there. I'll go in with you, though, if you want."

"It's okay," I said. "Emmett, I wanted to say...well, I wanted to say thank you. For fighting with us. It, it means a lot to me, and to the wolves, and..."

"Hey, no problem, Ness," he said. "I'll always be on your side, okay?"

"I'm so sorry about Alice—" I began to say.

"I am too," Emmett interrupted.

"What?" I said, confused. "But you didn't—"

"Well, neither did you," he said. "So stop apologizing, okay? We're all sad about Alice. We all miss her like hell. And nobody's blaming you."

"Edward is—"

"Nobody _who matters _is blaming you," he amended.

"Yeah, okay," I said, not really believing him.

"I'm gonna go destroy something big. See you, Nessie." He gave me one last squeeze and disappeared into the forest. I walked at a slow human pace up to the front door. If Alice had been here she would have met me on the porch. She always used to do that.

I didn't need a key now, though. The door swung open before my hand reached the knob. Quicker than thought, my mother swept me into her arms.

"Oh, baby," she burst out, "I'm so sorry I wasn't there, I should have been there, I should have protected you..."

"_I _didn't need protecting," I said somewhat stiffly. My mother pulled back and looked at me sorrowfully.

"Honey, you have every right to be mad at me. I messed up, okay? I should have been there. I know that now." Her dark-gold eyes were openly penitent, her perfect heart-shaped face strained, her beautiful shell-pink lips caught between her teeth in a habit she'd had as long as I'd known her. She was so lovely, a perfect specimen. And she was loving, too, and gave her heart wholly when she gave it at all.

But I could see that she was only sorry because her inaction had contributed to the death of a family member. If none of our side had died, she would have gone on believing she'd done right to stand down with Edward. She still didn't get it: she thought she could just look out for her own and still walk the moral high ground. She didn't believe she owed a thing to anyone she didn't know personally.

I supposed I'd always known that, in a way, but it was brought home to me especially hard now. She wasn't so loathsome as my father, who would gladly have traded Alice's life for unlimited faceless strangers; but she only acknowledged wrongdoing when it came back to burn her. I'd done a lot of shitty things in my life, but at least I had a little empathy.

"It's okay, Mom," I mumbled, pushing myself gently out of her arms. "How are you holding up? I heard Jasper vanished."

"Yes," she said. "He didn't say anything, he just ran off last night." She led me into the living room, where all the broken furniture had been removed. The room looked bare and sad without its usual chairs and tables and the fresh flowers Esme so loved. Alice's body was gone, and so was the couch it had rested on. Everyone stood around, not even bothering to pretend to shift and shuffle as they usually did.

"Hey, Rosalie," said Jacob as he followed me into the room. Rosalie nodded jerkily at him. "Thanks for helping us out. We owe you."

"Yeah," said Rosalie. "Well, don't worry about it."

I went to Rosalie and took her hand. "Thanks, Rosie," I said quietly. "Your help yesterday—I don't know what we would have done without you."

"They were your enemies," she said, her expression softening. "That made them my enemies."

"Nessie," Esme said behind me. "How are you holding up, dear?"

I shrugged. "How are _you _holding up?"

"Carlisle and I were just preparing the body for the funeral. He'll be down shortly. Since Jasper wasn't here to do it—" Of course. For all intents and purposes, she was Alice's mother. It was only natural that she should see to the arrangements. The thought made me feel worse. She'd known Alice for so long, had loved her as a daughter, and now she had to bury her. It went against the natural order of things—but then, what about vampires was _natural_?

"She'll need to be cremated," said Carlisle, appearing behind me and putting a hand on my shoulder. "But we'll wait for Jasper's return before we proceed."

Carlisle and Esme didn't offer apologies for their non-involvement as my mother had. They'd done as they believed right at the time, and this unexpected outcome couldn't change that fact. I didn't know whether to admire them or condemn them for it. In the end, their obvious grief took the edge off my anger. I stood around with my family and Jake for hours. Then Jake left to run more patrols—the wolves didn't want to let their guard down, especially now when they were so vulnerable—and I stayed. Esme made me some dinner, which I picked at but didn't really eat, and at about midnight I went to bed in my old room.

Jasper and Edward were both back by the time I woke up. I ate a quick breakfast, which thankfully stayed down, and then showered and trekked out with my family to a clearing in neutral territory, where we met Jake and Leah and a good many wolves. Jasper carried the body, wrapped up in many elaborate layers of raw white silk.

Some time in the last twenty-four hours, Esme had come out here and erected a pyre. She'd made it beautiful, rounded every corner and sanded it smooth. She'd even carved images into the dark wood; when I looked closely, I saw that they were tiny, dancing figures carrying garlands of hibiscus. A large, blooming honeysuckle that had been transplanted here in the night climbed up the wooden structure, and its ambrosial scent swam through my head.

Jasper laid the body on the pyre, and then Esme began piling on sand verbena, pearly everlasting, columbine, aster, and sage. She tucked forget-me-not into the folds of Alice's wrappings and clustered milfoil where the head would have been. Then the rest of us stepped forward to lay little tokens at Alice's feet: a busted-up baseball from Emmett, a tarnished key from Rosalie, an old celluloid record from Edward. In his elegant hand, now faded on the label, was written _Alice's Tango_. She had played it for me a few times: it was the first recording my father had made, sprightly and saucy and utterly _Alice_, a precursor to the CDs he would burn for Bella.

My mother tucked a single pearl button from her wedding dress in the fold that covered Alice's right hand. Beside it Esme placed a watercolor painting of the whole family, and Carlisle laid a few yellowing hand-written letters on top of it. From my pocket I pulled a little vintage lipstick-tube, still half-full of a lipstick color Alice had devised herself. I placed it between Rosalie's and Emmet's offerings and stepped quickly away, hating to be so close to the thing that wasn't Alice anymore.

Then Jasper stepped up to the body. He had no token. Instead, he raised his right wrist to his mouth and bit deeply through the flesh. A river of venom gushed from the wound, which he held over the pyre. He dripped his venom all over the body and the flowers and the gifts, watched stony-faced as it soaked into the delicate silk wrappings.

"This is all I have for you," he said quietly. "Everything I am is all I have to give."

When the stream of venom had slowed to a trickle, and Jasper was wavering where he stood, he stepped back again and turned away. He looked faint; if I didn't know better I would have expected him to pass out any moment. I'd never seen a vampire so nearly drained of his venom before, and it obviously did a number on him. Or perhaps that was just the sorrow of losing the only true love he'd ever known, the woman who had led him to become his best self.

"Jasper, would you like to—" Carlisle began, but Jasper shook his head.

"Someone else has to light the fire," he said, his voice no more than a whisper. "I can't."

So Esme struck a match. Saturated with Jasper's venom, the little body exploded into light. We stood and watched it burn, the sweet smell of sage and flowers and the cedar of the pyre filling our nostrils. Jacob stood behind me, his strong arms wrapped around my shoulders and his chin resting on my head.

By the time the fire had burned down, Jasper was gone. No one had seen him go.

* * *

**Oh, Jasper. KEEP YOUR HEAD ON, BOY! One million Knackard Land Funbucks to anyone who correctly divines **

**what our freshly unhinged Southern friend is going to do next!**


	22. Confession

**Hello, dears! Thank you for reviewing. And now, without further ado, The Content. This chapter rated M for...things.**

* * *

After Alice's funeral, I returned to the house with my family and Jacob returned to the rez. The next time I saw him was at the funeral service for the four dead wolves. Rosalie and Emmett were allowed temporary passage into Quileute territory as representatives of the Cullens. Esme sent flowers and food along with us. I sat with Leah, Rosalie, Emmett and Jake, surrounded by what most of the rez thought of as "that gang," what I thought of as peers and comrades-in-arms and friends.

After that, I lived in a haze of misery, eating only when forced to and sleeping fitfully if I slept at all. The gouges Flora had left in my torso were healing, but they hurt like hell. In the hours following the battle I had ridden a wave of adrenaline that had cancelled out the pain, but now it was a constant throb. With the way they wrapped around my side, there didn't seem to be any position I could lie in that didn't pull or stab or tear into the new scar tissue.

I stayed with Jake until he had to go run patrols, and then I stayed with my family until their endless reminiscing about Alice got too oppressive. I knew Edward and I would have to have it out eventually, but neither of us made the first move. He very carefully avoided speaking to me alone, and we didn't touch at all. Jasper didn't reappear.

One day, in the middle of a big sob-fest about what a ray of light Alice'd been, my phone started buzzing. It was Leah.

"Hello?" I said, leaving the room.

"Ness, we need you," she said tensely. I quickly glanced at the door to the living room, where my family was still gathered, and walked out the front door.

"What's up?" I said.

"We found something," she said. "How soon can you get here?"

It sounded serious. "I'll be there in half an hour," I promised, hanging up. I told my family I wanted to go out for some air, then kicked my Phaeton into high gear and sped for the rez.

Embry met me at the boundary line. He looked exhausted, but then, everyone looked exhausted these days.

"We're on the rock beach," he said, and then phased. I followed him out, wondering what the hell was making everyone so terse and weird, but nothing could prepare me for what I saw when I reached them.

Surrounded by wolves, backed up against a two-thousand-foot cliff, clutching the drained corpse of a hiker, was Jasper.

* * *

"Jasper?" I shouted, rushing forward. "What the hell, Jas?" I yanked the body out of his hands; its fair skin was already cool to the touch.

"I had to, Ness," he said. "I'm sorry. They won't help me any other way!"

"Jasper, how does this help anyone?" Horrified and gagging, I closed the man's already-clouded eyes.

"I have to be with her," he said desperately. "I can't do this without her."

"So you killed a guy? God, Jas, this is everything Alice hated—"

He flinched at the name but didn't say anything.

"He wants us to kill him," said Leah, fading back to her human self. "He asked us a couple of hours ago and obviously we sent him on his way, but then he came back with this—"

"I'll kill more," Jasper warned. "And I won't go after whiteys next time, either." The clearing filled with a chorus of growls.

"Ah, fuck, Jasper!" I yelled. "Did we really fucking need this? Five of our side dead, _including Alice_, and now you're gonna come in here and put this burden on us? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I don't care!" he screamed, looking beyond demented now. "I won't do this without her! They wouldn't kill me any other way! Kill me!" he shrieked, rotating on the spot and fixing his orange glare on the wolves that surrounded him. "_Kill me!_"

"No!" I shouted. "You don't get this from us. Find some other way!"

"You killed Peter and Charlotte! Why not me?" he countered. I fell back, shock blossoming on my face.

"How did you—"

"I've known for years," he said. "Alice saw that it would happen."

"Alice _saw_?" I gasped, horrified. "Then why didn't she—"

"She knew it couldn't be prevented," he said. "In every alternate future she saw, _you _were killed. So she let you do it. She kept Edward off your back. She wouldn't even have told me, but I felt her guilt."

"Oh, Jasper," I said, "I'm so—" I stopped. What could I say? I wasn't _sorry_, exactly. "Thank you for not telling," I finished lamely.

"This is your chance to return the favor," he pressed. "Please. Please, you have to do this for me."

"Jas, you're family," I said weakly, knowing that if ever there was a gray area it was this, and hating that I couldn't see the right thing to do. "I'll do everything I can to keep you from killing anyone else, but I won't do this. You don't want this, not really. You don't want to be a murderer. You'll heal. We all will. We won't turn into monsters just because someone we love died."

"I won't heal," he said. "Not from this."

"Then do it yourself," I said shortly. "Kill yourself. I won't do it."

"Fine," he said, and whipped a lighter from his pocket. He used his teeth to snip a vein, then held up the lighter, moving too fast for me to do more than stare in disbelieving horror. But in the second before he clicked it on, the charcoal-colored wolf tackled him. The lighter went flying, and Elizabeth and Jasper both disappeared over the edge of the cliff.

Everyone rushed forward to see them tumbling through space, Elizabeth folding back into her human form as she fell. They were wrestling in mid-air as their bodies approached terminal velocity, but I couldn't tell why they were struggling until the split second before they hit the jagged scree at the base of the cliff: Jasper worked himself underneath Elizabeth, so that his body took the full force of impact. He rolled as he hit the ground, flinging Elizabeth into the crashing waves, where she landed with a hard but nonlethal splash.

I stared down at the turbulent sea. Elizabeth was having trouble keeping her head above water. It was a miracle she'd survived the fall; she'd only done so with a full vampire to serve as a shock absorber. We had no way of getting to her, and if she drowned she would be just as dead as if she weren't an immortal werewolf.

I spun around to face Jacob, who had unphased and was staring down. "What do we do?" I asked him in a panic. "Should I go down there? I can probably survive the fall better than you could—"

"Look," he said, pointing. Jasper was swimming out to Elizabeth, holding her face above water, slicing through the waves to bring her back to land.

"That son of a bitch," Leah muttered. "Now we _really _can't kill him. _Fuck!_"

The first thing Elizabeth said to Leah when we met her and Jasper half a mile downshore was, "I want you to take me off patrols. I'm retiring."

"That's the smartest fucking thing I've heard all week," Leah said. "Don't think you can phase when I'm not around and play fetch."

Elizabeth just shrugged and accepted the jacket I held out to her. "Okay," she said.

"And _you_," snarled Leah, facing Jasper. "We didn't kill you because you took out that samurai psycho. And you just dragged this stupid mutt out of the water, so we _extra _can't kill you, much as we would _sorely love to_. But if you ever try this bullshit on us again, we _can _and _will _tear you limb from limb and put you in cold storage to think about your precious little dead girlfriend for the rest of eternity. It would be _absolutely no trouble_ and your life would suck _so much more_ than it does now." She jabbed a finger against his chest to emphasize the words. "Get your shit together. Go eat some fucking mountain lions. Rescue a couple hundred humans to make up for that poor guy you ate back there, go commit suicide somewhere else, whatever, I don't care what you do. But you _get the hell off our land_, and don't let me see your fucking face _ever again_. You got that?"

Jasper nodded stiffly and ran at a dead sprint toward the boundary line. Leah rounded on the rest of us. Involuntarily I shrank back, bumping into Jacob's chest. He put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

"With all the shit I have to deal with," Leah huffed. "_Christ_."

Before I made another move, I pulled out my phone and sent a text to Rosalie: _Find Jasper and don't let him out of your sight. He's so fucked up he might hurt someone._

A moment later, the message came back: _Will do._

Jacob pulled me away from the group. "Come on," he said, phasing. I followed him back to his house. He unphased on the porch and grabbed a pair of shorts from a stack he kept just inside the door.

While I followed him inside, my phone started buzzing. I checked the new message from Rosalie: _Wow, you weren't kidding. He looks like shit_.

So they'd found him. I sighed in relief as I pocketed my phone. At least Jasper was contained for the time being. He'd never get past Rosalie and Emmett.

The weather had been cold and misty all day, and I started shivering as soon as I stopped moving. Some of it was shock, but I was also chilled and wet and clammy and I hadn't eaten a proper meal in days.

"You look like you could use a blanket," said Jacob when he saw how my teeth chattered. I shook my head, kicking off my shoes.

"I don't need a blanket," I said, unzipping my jeans and shimmying out of them.

"Uh, Ness, what are you—?" he said, trying and failing to look away from my bare, goose-bumpy thighs.

"I'm cold," I said, stripping out of my sweat shirt, "and I'm wet," —off came my socks— "and I'm in shock," —my t-shirt joined the rest of my clothes on the floor— "and I'm gonna go drink a cold goddamn beer in a hot goddamn bath. If you want to keep me company, that would be awesome. If not, whatever." I _so _didn't feel like worrying about modesty right now. I strode past him, down the hall and into the bathroom. His tub was filthy. I sighed and sprayed it with foaming cleanser. Then I stripped out of my tank top and bra and undies, clad myself in Jake's bath-towel, and sat shivering on the toilet while I waited for the bleach to sink in.

There was a knock on the door.

"Nessie?" Jake called softly. "You in there?"

"Who else would be in here?" I said, opening the door. Jacob's Adam's apple bobbed nervously as he looked for a place to rest his eyes.

"I brought you that beer," he said, holding out a frosty Corona. I took it from him, popped the cap with my bare fingers, and took a swig.

"Goddamn, that's good," I said. "Jacob?"

"Yeah?"

"What the hell is going on, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is everyone just going crazy, or what? Christ, man. Jasper. I mean, is he gonna be alright? I can't just let him go off and eat a lot of people and go back to being a bad guy. I can't. And I can't kill him, either. Peter and Charlotte were one thing, but I draw the line at killing actual family members. I just seriously don't know what to do."

Jacob popped the top on his own Corona and took a long pull.

"I don't know, Ness," he said after some consideration. "I don't think he'll go back to eating people. He said it used to fuck him up because of that touchy-feely stuff he does."

"You know, I got in a big-ass fight with Elizabeth before the battle started," I said.

"Yeah, I heard. What was that about?"

"She was all screwed up about William. Well, I mean, you know what she was like. And we got in this fight and I yelled at her and she called me a pussy and she was _right_, dammit."

"Huh?" Jacob squinted at me. "No you're not! Why are you a pussy?"

"Because I am so fucking in love with you and I've never told you, not once." I contemplated my beer moodily.

"_What?_" Jacob burst out. His bottle slipped from his fingers and crashed to the tile floor, where it broke into a thousand sticky shards.

Beer foamed beneath my feet. "There's so much that can happen to us. We could so easily be dead now, but we're not, and I have to say it now or I never will. I'm in love with you."

Then I did the one thing that had always seemed so impossible and now seemed so easy: standing on my tippy-toes, I kissed his lips, quietly and without fuss.

For a droplet of time Jacob did nothing. Then his mouth moved and he was kissing me back, sliding his big warm hands into my hair and down my arms, heating me from the inside out. I threw my arms around him and clung like a monkey. Experimentally I tasted his lips with my tongue, and as soon as he felt that he flushed even warmer and opened his mouth, pressed his tongue against mine. He tasted _wonderful_.

"Nessie," he said, breaking off and searching my face. I looked at him half-defiantly, half-expectantly. "Are you drunk?" I wrinkled my nose at him and shook my head. "Stoned?" he guessed. "In shock?"

"No," I said. "Well, I mean, _yes_, I am in shock. I already told you that. But that's not why I'm..." This was coming out all wrong. "I always sort of had this vision of finding some really romantic way to tell you, so you would be swept off your feet, but..." I looked around at the dingy, ill-lit bathroom with beer and glass and Jake's blood covering the floor. I breathed in the smell of mildew and bleach, and then looked straight into my beloved's eyes. "This is probably as perfect as it's ever going to get."

There was that look in his eyes again, the look I'd been seeing more and more recently. I'd never been able to fix a name to it until now, but with the flush under his skin and the dilated pupils and the heavy breathing, there could be no mistaking it this time: lust. _Intense _lust. I'd never seen anything so beautiful. I needed this right now, and I needed it from _him_.

He grabbed me around the waist and held me immovably against him, lifted me up to his height and kissed me hard. His lips traveled south, down my neck and into the dips of my collarbone. My brain kept up a steady stream of _Jacob Jacob Jacob _as the heat from his hands soaked through my towel and lit up my blood.

"Jake..." I moaned, twisting his hair in my hands. He smelled so good, so fucking good... I fastened my mouth against his carotid artery and tasted his skin, felt and heard the blood racing furiously under my lips. I hadn't tasted him in so long, too long, oh god, I hadn't tasted him since I was little and I'd drunk his blood as a toddler; and even then he hadn't made me feel like _this_... The temptation was too strong. Carefully I bit the skin of his neck, just enough to open a slit no bigger than a papercut. A single drop of blood welled up and I licked it away.

"Oh, fuuuck," I moaned, savoring the taste and the smell of his blood. "I want to drain you dry, Jake."

"Big words," he said hoarsely, "for such a little girl."

Then he slammed me against the bathroom wall and slid his hands down my body, curled them under my ass. My eyes slid closed as his fingers crept under my towel and all the way up my sides. In one swift movement he snatched it from me and tossed it away. Then he stopped. I heard him suck in his breath. Without his hands on me, I was cold again.

"Aw, Ness," he breathed. I opened my eyes to see what the holdup was. Jacob was kneeling before me, staring at the angry red weals Flora had left from ribcage to iliac crest.

"Ah," I said dully. "My decorations."

Jacob traced the longest and deepest contusion with his fingertip, then the one next to it, and the next. One by one, he ran his warm fingers delicately over the tender, new scar tissue. After he had counted each one, he did it again, with lips instead of fingers. Like he could kiss away the hurt.

"Who gave you these?" he asked, looking up.

"Flora," I answered. "The one who...who did the memories thing."

"I didn't know you were wounded," he said. "Not this much. You didn't say anything...Jesus, Ness, she really sliced you up."

"It's okay. Look, they're almost healed."

"Do they hurt a lot?" he asked.

"Not anymore," I said. "Not when you touch them." It was true: his hands, warm and big and careful, made everything feel okay. The same went for his smile, and his crinkly-happy eyes, and the velvety, low sound of his voice. Everything about him was just so...so _Jake_. "I'm gonna have scars though," I added. "Big ones."

"You're gonna look so badass," he said, grinning and holding one palm against the deepest of the cuts. Then his expression sobered. "Ness," he started.

"Yeah?"

"Ness, we can't live forever."

"What do you—"

"I can't ever stop fighting this fight." He squeezed his eyes shut.

"I know," I said, putting my hand over his. "I would never ask you to."

"You'll never stop, either." Silently I shook my head. "It's why I love you, Ness." His voice broke but when he continued a moment later it was steady again. "Sure, you're also smart and witty and sexy as hell, and I love those parts you too. But you...you could have died out there."

On the last word he pressed his face against my stomach, hiding it from view. I looked down on the black mess that was his hair and felt his shoulders begin to shake. And this time when he spoke, the words were strained and haggard. "You could have died. Flora could have killed you. Amoun...Hell, _any one of them _could have killed you." He took a deep breath which didn't steady him. "When you were little, when we found out you wouldn't age and die like a human, I thought, thank _god_, this spinning, dancing, shining little girl will get to grace this planet forever. And for the first time in my life, I was glad to be a werewolf, because it meant I would live forever too, all I had to do was keep phasing and I would never have to leave you. You and I could just be immortals together. Nothing could hurt us and we would never, ever die."

"But it doesn't work like that," I said quietly, twisting my hands in his hair.

"No, it doesn't," he growled. He dug his fingers sharply into my sides and looked up at my face with fierce eyes. "You _could _have _died_. You could have—"

"But I didn't," I said a little pleadingly.

"But you _will_," he replied without hesitation, and I could tell from the shock that gripped his features that this was a genuinely new thought to him. "I've always sworn I would protect you, but I never realized before that I _can't_. The only way you'll ever be really safe is if you run away from all this shit. And there was a time when I would have begged you to do that, but I can't ask it now. Thats not who you are. You're the girl—you're the _woman _who fights the bad guys, who will _always _fight. Nothing but death will ever stop you. How did I not see that before?"

I had no answer. I hadn't seen it any more than he had, but it seemed so obvious now. I had held the outlook of all twenty-six-year-olds everywhere, in which mortality wasn't really a factor. But now, with Alice and the wolves dead, with Jasper undone and the Olympic Coven fractured, everything suddenly seemed frighteningly impermanent.

"It terrifies me," he said shakily. "And it's why I love you. I am so fucking in love with you, Ness. So in love..."

He rose to his feet, lifting me up to his height as he did so. This time when we kissed there was something in it that hurt as much as it delighted. This kiss was sloppy and harsh and it pushed my head back against the wall and I pushed back, and our teeth scraped and our breathing rasped, loud and hot and frantic. We were fighting like wild things. And we fought not against each other, but together against the one inevitable truth: we weren't the immortals we'd always assumed we'd be. We would both die some day. We would both be killed. No one got lucky forever, and quitting was fundamentally not an option for either of us.

Truth be told, it was why I loved him too.

We'd wasted so much time, thinking all along that we had more, our time was limitless. But sooner or later, some red-eyed leech would get the upper hand of one of us. And even then, the other would go on fighting. It was who we were, deep in our bones.

I felt something hot and wet on my cheek and tasted salt. My eyes were as dry as dust, aching with tears that wouldn't come, but the desperate thing in Jacob had burst and even the powerful arms with which he held me were shaking. He made no obvious crying sounds, no wails or sobs, but a guttural, wretched moan broke unevenly through his mouth into mine. His arms were clamped around me like a vice. His whole body, from thighs to pelvis to stomach to chest, pressed urgently against me.

I was wild with the existential thrill of our shared mortality. The dark, heady smell of Jake, the hard swelling I felt where our groins ground together, above all the satisfying, excruciating, priceless knowledge of his love for me—I was so physically and emotionally agitated I hardly knew whether to fuck him or fight him. From the possessive way his hands swept across my flesh with a degree of force that would certainly have killed a human, I knew he felt the same. We both were the kindling, we both were the flame.

I slid my hands over his shoulders and down his deltoid and trapezius muscles, which tightened and relaxed under my touch. I dug my hands into the waistband of his shorts, took them in both hands and tore them into easily-discarded shreds. Quickly the harrowing cocktail of emotions we'd both been feeling altered again: everything still felt real and overwhelming, but suddenly, with not a stitch between us, the lust grew loud enough to drown out everything else. I needed this man to screw me till he scrambled my insides. I needed to fuck him into blindness.

"Shit, Ness," he mumbled. His dick fit in my hand like a joystick. I rubbed my thumb against the bead of pre-ejaculate at the tip, swirling it around and eliciting another, hoarser sound from him. I rubbed his cock between my legs, where I was wettest. He slid one finger inside me, then added another. Two of Jake's fingers were the size of a normal guy's entire dick. I gasped in shock and pleasure as he rubbed my clit with the pad of his thumb. When he curled his fingers up and in, hitting that sweet spot, I moaned out loud.

"Condom?" he asked me.

I shook my head. "IUD," I said briefly. I'd started using one six years ago, unwilling to spend eternity worrying about user error. "I don't have anything," I added.

"Good," he grunted. "Me neither." Then he grabbed me under the ribs and hitched me back up against the wall. I hooked my legs around him and wrapped my left hand around the towel-rack that was currently digging into my kidneys. Jake pressed the tip of his cock against my opening, then paused and looked up at my face. I reached down, held his cock in my right hand, and guided it swiftly inside.

Jake sucked in a prodigious breath and began thrusting steadily. It was a considerably tighter squeeze than I was used to. All the nerve endings in my body, particularly the ones in charge of getting me off, were alight. Moving my hips in time to Jake's thrusts, I rubbed my fingers against my clit, harder and harder as the pressure grew. It was all so tight and slick and I was feeling absolutely _everything_, pain as much as gratification, and he fit like he was _made for me_—

The way he angled into me hit exactly the right spot. With some steady stimulation, courtesy of my right hand, I came hard, convulsing around Jake's cock. I went well beyond yelling or breathing or thinking. Reflexively I sank my teeth into his shoulder, the only movement my climax-addled brain could assign to my muscles. My mouth filled with his blood. It tasted like every orgasm I'd ever had.

Jake came a second later, hollering in my ear. By the time my eardrums had stopped ringing from that, he was panting hot breaths against my neck, his big hands splayed across my back in a hold so tight I couldn't move.

I licked the last of the blood away from his already-healing wound. "You taste like a cold swim on a hot day," I whispered.

"Mm hmmm," he agreed, tonguing a languorous line up the side of my sweaty neck. "Mmm-mm-hmmm."

Gently Jake disengaged and set me back on the floor. The towel he'd dropped had soaked up much of the beer spill. It squished beneath our toes.

"So, we're both going to die some day," I said, with considerably less angst than I'd felt only sixty seconds ago—nothing like a brain-melting orgasm to chase away the sad thoughts.

Jake nodded solemnly. "But before that happens," he said, "We're gonna do absolutely _everything _to each other."

* * *

**I bet you all thought I was just going to lead you on forever. Gotcha!**

**If you are glad to finally have some goddamn action around here that doesn't involve the brutal murder of your favorite characters, leave me a review and tell me so. If you are disappointed that this story has just devolved into vulgar smut, ****_why are you reading fanfiction?_**

**__Oh, and, incidentally, one kajillion points to guest reviewer Victoria for guessing _exactly_ what Jasper would do. Victoria, was that you outside my window last night, watching me type? Bom chikka._  
_**


	23. Further Consequences

**Hey guys! I hope those of you who were longing for some goddamn action were at least a little pleased with the last chapter. This one's a bit more sober.**

* * *

Jake and I weren't in a big hurry to take a break in our cycle of sex-nap-eat-sex-nap-eat, but the next morning Jacob grumblingly pulled himself away.

"I have to go run patrol," he said.

"Oh, please? One more?" I pleaded, pulling his sheets aside and dragging one finger languorously up my hipbone.

"Ahhhhh," said Jake, in an agony of indecision. "I can't. I'm already late."

"What if it's _really fast?_" I said, letting the finger swoop into my dark pubic hair.

"Oh...all right," he said, unbuttoning his shorts.

* * *

After Jake left, a mere fifteen minutes later, I showered again and tried to figure out a way to wear my hair until the bald patch grew back in.

I was due to patrol with Leah this afternoon. I ran out to meet her at the usual place. When she saw me, she burst out laughing.

"What?" I said defensively.

"You...son of a..._bitch!_" she wheezed between spasms. "You really fucking did it!"

"What?" I said shiftily.

"If you could see into your boyfriend's head right now you would piss yourself laughing. He has got some fucked-up shit in there right now," she said, making a visible attempt to bring her mirth under control. "But seriously, though. I'm glad someone's having a good time."

"Yeah..." I said awkwardly.

"A very, _very _good time."

* * *

After my patrol, I met Jake for a quick score and then we drove out to the Cullen mansion. I didn't know when I had started thinking of them as "the Cullens" and not "my family," but somewhere along the way my parents and grandparents had become _others._ Rosalie and Emmett were still mine, at least. They had always been a little different anyway.

When I saw the familiar house emerging ghost-like from the mist, I had to swallow back panicky bile. This had been my first home. The first sight my infant eyes had ever seen had been the bright lights in the second-floor room where my mother delivered me and then underwent her transformation. Inside were the living room where the imprint took, the foyer with the big windows through which I saw my newly-turned mother attack Jacob before meeting me, the kitchen where Esme first taught me to cook simple human food.

At least Jacob was beside me now. He rested one big warm hand on the nape of my neck and toyed with the short fringe of my hair.

"You ready?" he asked. I nodded, then shook my head, then reluctantly nodded again. Slowly I got out of the car, slowly I paced up the front walk, slowly I opened the front door.

"Hello?" I said in a soft speaking voice.

"In here," I heard Rosalie say in the same tone. I heard her easily although she spoke from the second floor. Jake and I went upstairs and found Rosalie in the library standing on one side of Jasper, Emmett on the other. Jasper looked as unhappy as I'd ever seen him; the whole mood in this room was one of dejected resignation. The orange cast his brief human binge had given his eyes was already faded by a tenth of a shade.

"You okay, Jas?" I asked him.

"No," he said. "And yourself?"

"Do you want to...talk about it?" I asked uncertainly.

To my infinite surprise, Jasper nodded and gave me a reflection of a shadow of a smile. "Don't worry," he said to Emmett. "I won't go on a rampage."

Jasper and I went for a walk in the forest around the house. I didn't know what to say. I loved my uncle, but he had always been a tough nut to crack and I had no idea what to say to him now.

"Do they know?" I said finally.

"No," he said. "Thanks for not sayin' anything." I put a hand on his shoulder and was hit with a wave of shame that was quickly reigned in.

"Whoa, Jas," I said in some alarm. "Is your power on the fritz?"

He shrugged. "It always gets weird when _she_ isn't around to...to balance me out, you know? Like, whenever she would go away for something...the Cullens used to have to kick me out to go hunting or I'd make everyone edgy." So he was calling them _the Cullens_ now, too.

"Oh," I said, bracing myself against a few small flutters of despair and guilt. They dissipated quickly enough, but I realized that they'd only disappeared from _my_ mind; Jasper still felt this way. The thought made me want to cry.

"I guess this is the new normal," he said. "It's not like she's...she's comin' back from vacation or anything."

"No, she's not." There was more silence while I struggled with what I wanted to say.

"Okay, out with it," he said at last. I looked at him in surprise. "I can tell you want to say something. You're nervous and preoccupied and you're pitying me. I'd rather you came out with it."

"Okay," I said. "Jas...will you ever be able to forgive me?" We stopped walking. He turned to face me. There was a look in his eyes that could have meant anything; I wondered briefly if he was going to murder me.

Instead, he said, "I don't think so, Nessie."

"Oh." I couldn't blame him, really, but I also couldn't help the tears that pricked at my eyes. "I'm so, _so_ sorry I got you guys involved—"

"Not that," he cut in. "I don't mean about the fight. That was—hell, compared to some of the fights I've been in in my time, that was a schoolyard tousle. Anyway, it's not like you _made_ her come along. I just...can't forgive you for survivin' when she didn't. I can't forgive myself, either. I wish so bad I'd died instead. If I'm bein' honest, and hell, why not, I would trade every single one of the Cullens for Alice back. Even you. No offense."

I didn't really know how to take this, so I said nothing.

"Rosalie never wanted to be a vampire, why couldn't it've been her?" he said. "Emmett would have dealt with it better than I am. Why couldn't it've been anyone, _anyone at all_, instead of her? I wonder if she knew she would die. If she ever looked into the future and saw that she dropped out of it suddenly. But her power didn't work like that. Maybe if it did she woulda..." He stopped talking and I felt another wave of emotion, panicky regret and longing. All the air went out of me and I hunched over, gasping for breath. It felt _awful_. And this was how Jasper felt _all the goddamn time_.

"Jasper," I wheezed, clutching at my throat.

"Sorry," he said, and the longing receded slightly, enough for me to think at least.

"Are you gonna kill anyone else?" I asked when I could breathe again.

"I don't think so," he said. "I mean, anything can happen, but I'm not plannin' on it. The last human I ever attacked was...I almost killed Bella, when she was alive."

"Well, who hasn't considered _that _once or twice," I said. He smiled weakly.

"I've decided I don't want to go back to the way things were before I met Alice. If I did that—well, then what were all those years for? Eighty years. Just eighty..." He trailed off, staring into the underbrush.

"What are you gonna do?" I asked.

"I'm gettin' the hell out of here," he said. "I can't be around...I'll try not to kill any humans, but I can't make any promises about your daddy. If I ever see him again...well, let's just say I better not."

"Hey, I—" I almost said _I know how you feel_, which was both literally true and a gross understatement, so I shut my mouth. "I hate him, too," I finished.

"I'll probably head to Russia for a while," he said. "Just...get lost. Maybe when I feel like dealin' with people again I'll see if the Denalis will let me crash at their place. I don't know."

"Do you think...well, will I ever see you again?" I asked.

"Maybe," he said, distractedly running a hand through his pale hair. "I wouldn't count on it, though."

"Oh," I said.

"Nessie, I hope you do okay. You probably will. You've always been...resilient."

"Thanks, Jas."

"I don't know what else to say," he said. "And there's not much point in hangin' around with nothin' to say, so..."

"Yeah," I said. "Of course."

"I'm gonna go now."

"Go...you mean _go_, go?" He nodded. "What about Rose and Emmett?" I asked. "Aren't you gonna say goodbye?"

"I already sorta did," he admitted. "They know I'm leavin', anyway. They were just keepin' an eye on me in case your daddy came back." In case he tried to murder my father. I wouldn't have blamed him.

"Bye, Jas," I said quietly. "Love you. I really hope you're okay...you know, eventually."

"Thanks, Nessie. Love you too." He ruffled my hair once and was gone.

* * *

The Cullens swathed their furniture in white sheets and packed up their belongings before moving to Alaska, to spend some time with the Denali clan and recover their spirits. Edward and Carlisle went ahead to make arrangements; I suspected Edward was as relieved as I to avoid a confrontation. I helped the remaining Cullens prepare their mansion for a long hibernation.

"You're sure you don't want us to stay here with you?" Rosalie said for the twentieth time as I helped her fold sixty-one pairs of designer jeans. "We will, if you want us."

"I know that, Rosalie," I said, kissing her on the cheek. "If anything bad comes up, you're the first person I'll call. And I'm gonna want you guys to visit me like, a lot. But hell, I'm half-human. I heal easier than vampires do. They need you more than I do right now."

"I don't know," she grumbled, "I may not be able to take too much of your father." She looked at me guiltily, worried that she'd veered too close to a sensitive subject.

"When you get sick of him, you know where to find me. And maybe when you get settled I'll come see you for a quick visit, sometime when he's not around."

"Are you sure you two can't—"

"I'm _sure_, Rose. It's been coming on for a long time. Hey, maybe in fifty or sixty years we'll be able to stand each other again. But for now..."

"Okay, okay," she said. "I just wish..."

"What?" I asked.

"I wish you were coming with us," she said. I was sure it wasn't what she had meant to say, but I smiled and hugged her tightly anyway.

"I love you, Rosie. You won't get rid of me just by moving to Alaska."

"Okay, Nessie. I love you too. Even that stinking mutt of yours is kind of growing on me. But don't tell him I said that."

"Right-o," I grinned.

I parted amicably enough with my grandparents. They both knew something had gone down between my father and me, but I knew I could trust them not to judge the situation entirely through his eyes. We promised to write and visit. Esme even presented me with a dense stack of pre-stamped envelopes stuffed with hand-pressed paper.

"Please write to us, dear," she said, and I could tell from the anxious look in her eyes that she didn't really expect me to. I sniffed the thick sheaf; it smelled like she had mixed sand verbena and lavender into the pulp for the paper. It smelled like home, and comfort, and _her_.

"I will," I promised. "But I'll never bring myself to write on this stuff. You have to stop giving me such nice presents, Esme." She smiled in relief at my answer.

Emmett tossed me high up in the air in place of a proper goodbye, which seemed somehow appropriate.

"I'll train a polar bear for you," he promised. "And I won't even eat it."

My mother held me in slender white arms and stroked my short hair. "It doesn't have to be this way, honey," she murmured in my ear. "We could be a family again."

I leaned back to look at her. "What," I joked, "You think just because Dad and I hate each other we aren't still a family?" She winced. "Come on, Mom, we've lived a country apart before. Remember when I was in St. John's? This is just more of the same. We were alright then. We'll be alright now."

* * *

**One chapter left! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel at last. Review me if you feel like it. Kiss kiss.**


	24. The Next Beginning

After my family left, I wandered through Forks. I didn't spend a whole lot of time in town, and as I got older I'd have to start moving around as my family did, although of course there was more freedom on the rez. I drove to Charlie's house, where I hadn't slept in weeks. There was a fine layer of dust on everything. The living room was half-full of boxes from Portland that I had yet to unpack, having instead lived this past year out of two or three suitcases and one box of necessaries.

Maybe I'd clean up and unpack later. Maybe I'd touch up the paint on the walls, sweep and mop the floors, organize the crap that spilled over every horizontal surface of the house.

Or maybe I'd collapse in tears and wait for things to make sense again. I never really knew what would happen these days.

I drove to the rez, swung by Leah's house even though I knew she was wolfed up right now. Seth was almost healed, but until he got beck on his paws he was crashing with his sister. I helped him polish off a huge pot of coffee, which he wasn't technically supposed to have, and we played MarioKart for a while. I offered to run errands for him, but he begged me not to, since running errands was the only thing other than brief patrols that got Leah out of the house and out of his hair.

I ran to the rock beach and sat on a log, staring out at the waves and feeling lost.

The air smelled good, fresh and salty. I watched the sun go down, and when it got cold enough that my thin jacket couldn't cut it anymore, I wandered back to Jake's house to wait for him to finish up work. I could hear him clinking around in his garage, with some sort of raucous music blaring. He'd been taking on extra hours running patrol, which cut into the time he could spend working on the cars he flipped for an income. I wished that he could have some sort of normal job, one that actually made use of the college degree he'd worked so hard to acquire, but this was the only way for him to pay the bills and still have time to run the pack.

I realized _I_would have to get some sort of normal job. I had a substantial chunk in my savings account, of course, but with both Alice and Jasper gone—and with them, their shady connections to the stock-market and phony papers—I was considerably lower on options than I'd been a few weeks ago. I couldn't (or wouldn't) accept money from my family anymore. Maybe I could find work on the rez. Or in Seattle. Or at the bottom of the sea, where no one would bother me. So, for something to do, I opened Jake's laptop and started browsing local job sites, and that was what I was still doing when Jake finally came in.

Before even washing his hands with the heavy-duty charcoal soap in the kitchen, he came up behind me and planted a kiss squarely on the center part in my hair. I spun around in the computer chair, wrapped my arms around his waist and clung to him. I smelled the motor oil on his hands and the pungent smell of sweat and pheromones that always came off him after he'd pulled back-to-back shifts on patrol and in the garage. This was _my_Jake, as familiar to me as the back of my own hand yet always changing, always becoming someone new, someone better.

"I love you," I said.

"I love you too," he said. Then he noticed the page I'd left open. "Looking for work?"

I nodded. "I want to find something where I'm working with my hands. Like, I really loved when Esme and I used to restore old houses. I could do that. Or I could, I don't know, sew or something."

"If you needed to, you could work in my garage," he suggested.

"I will if I don't find anything else," I allowed, "But I'd rather do something that's sort of separate, you know? Otherwise we'll be at each other's throats within a week."

"You're probably right," he admitted.

"Hungry?" I asked. He nodded. "Breakfast for dinner?"

"_Aww_, yeah," he said. "Let's live the dream."

After ploughing through a stack of pancakes sixteen inches high, a dozen pieces of breakfast sausage and half a gallon of orange juice, we took a shower that was really more of a soapy makeout session than an actual bathe and slipped into bed. I was equal parts horny and tired, and Jake clearly was, too. I was debating whether to pass out or angle for a quickie when Jake's eyes slid closed and he began to snore gently. I stared at his slumbering face for a moment, traced one finger down the center of his nose. I could feel a slight crook in the already-prominent bridge where it had been broken some years before and hadn't healed exactly straight. I kissed that little bump, then cuddled up against him and fell asleep.

* * *

When I woke up, I was nine parts horny and one part hungry, a much more manageable ratio. Jake was still out like a light. I poked him in the side a few times, to no effect. Then I started clearing my throat progressively louder. Then I feigned a coughing fit. Jake's eyes snapped open.

"You okay?" he asked groggily. I nodded innocently. "Good," he said, and went straight back to sleep. I sighed and got out of bed, puttered around the kitchen making breakfast. Just as the bacon was starting to sizzle, Jake appeared in the doorway.

"Do I smell bacon?" he asked excitedly.

"Mm-hmm," I affirmed. "It'll be ready in twenty minutes."

"Since when does bacon take twenty minutes to cook?" he complained.

I turned off the burner. "Since now," I said, opening my robe. Jake's eyes lit up.

"I bow to your culinary genius, O Master Chef," he said, kneeling in front of me and nosing my legs apart.

"Excellent," I said cheerfully.

* * *

I had to run patrol shortly after that. The wolves had caught the faint scent of a leech and we needed all hands on deck. When I was done, Jake was on patrol, and after that he had to put in some time at the garage, so I had a little time to kill before I could get laid again.

I went back to Charlie's house and resumed my previous internal debate as I looked at the dusty furniture, the stacked boxes of stuff from Portland.

_Cry or clean?_ I wondered. _Clean or cry?_

On top of one of the boxes was a leather jacket Alice had given me for a long-ago birthday. The leather was buttery-soft and expensive. No matter how hard I sniffed it, I couldn't catch a single trace of her well-remembered scent.

But I had a perfect memory. If I closed my eyes and tried hard enough, I could almost believe Alice was here with me, teasing me about my hair and begging me to let her give me a manicure.

_Cry or clean?_

No reason I couldn't do both. I put on the jacket, pulled open the nearest cardboard box, and began to unpack.

* * *

**.**

**As always, thanks to my darling reviewers and quietly lurking readers. I cherish you all.**

**A/N: There were two additional chapters that I had to cut because they compromised the flow of the story: a tense conversation between Nessie and Edward, and a rather racy scene between her and Jake. Look for those to go up over the next few Fridays; I will post them on the same schedule as I've posted TSB.**

**In the process of writing this story, I had to seriously revisit my motives several times. By now I'm sure it's no secret to anyone how I feel about Bella and Edward; this was a chance for me to air my frustrations with the original series. This also allowed me to try to find a plausible love story between Jake and Nessie that wasn't creepy, gross and wrong. That meant I had to find a way to avoid any hint of child-grooming or even a whiff of sexual interest from Jake for Nessie before she was good and legal. This is why I dragged this out for so long: even if she was physically mature by seven or eight, I wasn't comfortable blurring that line in this context. In some contexts, yes, as soon as she's physically an adult I can see her taking on an adult sexual role (for example, in a story I am finishing now and will post soon). But with her imprint, who's known her since she was in diapers? Hell no.**

**The downside to this is that by the time Jake DOES become sexually interested in her, I have already spent the entire story establishing that he DOESN'T, which means I've had some trouble trying to quickly recharacterize him from Oblivious Jake to Interested Jake. I don't know how well I succeeded; maybe you can tell me. This problem, by the way, led to a JPOV version of a previous chapter which, if you guys want, I will also post.**

**The third most notable revision I've made since I first started is the degree of seriousness in the story. I swear to god, when I started it was just gonna be this little eight-chapter thing with no deaths or anything! Also, when I was a little kid I wanted to grow up to be an astronaut, or possibly a flower, so you see how good I am at following through. Oh well.  
**

**Thanks for hanging in there, guys. You're the best. Check out my other stuff if you, you know, feel like it.**


	25. Epilogue, An Overdue Conversation

**Hello, dearlings! If you're wondering where I've been, have a look-see at my other stories for a JPOV chapter from this story, called ****_You Were A Witch With Your Short Hair._****That went up on the same schedule as TSB, but if you aren't in the habit of browsing for New Stories you probably missed it.**

**Something I haven't talked about a lot but which appears relevant is that this story is only secondarily about Jake and Nessie. It almost seems wrong to categorize it as a J/N yarn, because it 's much more about her growing up than about them getting together, which is part of why I spend a million chapters developing her/her family/her friends/her shitty parents/her job/everything else under the sun and only a couple chapters on actual J/N romance. I may well have failed to make that clear, for which I can only say hey, sorry, I'm no Neil Gaiman. This is my first long-form fiction, and I think I tried to tackle more than I am presently capable of tackling. That's okay, it was still fun to write, and my reviewers could not have been more magnificent in helping me figure things out. Thanks, y'all.**

* * *

It was over a decade before I could bring myself to visit my family in Alaska. In all that time, only Rosalie and Emmett made the trip back to Forks to see me, but instead of feeling slighted I was relieved that the others so fully appreciated my need to distance myself from them. I doubted I would ever see them the same again, my parents and grandparents who had abandoned their allies when they were needed most.

But I was glad to see Rosalie and Emmett, who brought with them a feeling of normalcy that was like medicine to me. They visited us every year or so, making special trips when the wolves found leeches that were particularly tenacious. Jake and Leah even came to an agreement with Rosalie and Emmett: provided they kept their visits brief, and only when needed to help trap a red-eyed leech, they were allowed onto parts of the reservation.

The same offer, of course, did not apply to my other family members.

And I saw nothing of my parents for eleven years, but my mother eventually wrote me begging me to visit, telling me how much she missed me and that my father would be away hunting. So I took the bus ride north, to Alaska. I had a bittersweet reunion with Carlisle, Esme and my mother (and a rather more casual one with my aunt and uncle). We all tried to think of something to say to each other, but it must have been obvious by this time how little Cullen remained in my personality. We firmly avoided talking about the past. Esme was the only one with whom I had any residual sympathy of feeling. We depended heavily on Rosalie and Emmett to lighten the atmosphere; I suspected Emmett was enjoying this a little too much and wondered how he stood living with these people all the time.

But my father returned rather earlier than Bella'd thought. I smelled and heard him coming through the airlock, stamping the snow from his designer boots, and fought back a childish urge to run away.

I could tell at once that the passage of eleven years had not remotely blunted my father's pain at his sister's death and his brother's defection. I could tell also that his anger at me was as fresh as it had been when Alice was first killed. I sat in the sleek leather armchair in my family's living room and stared wide-eyed at my father, while everyone else pretended to be deeply engrossed in their cuticles.

Edward took several deep breaths. "Renesmee," he said with forced calm. "I didn't expect you." My mother smiled sheepishly at him. So she'd been keeping secrets. "Would you take a walk with me?" he continued without deigning to look at her. I followed him out into the woods, where I endured fifteen of the most uncomfortable minutes of my life. Neither of us spoke. We didn't even make eye contact.

"Renesmee," he said finally, as one doing his duty, "I love you and I will always love you."

"Thanks," I said. "You too, I guess." He flinched at my harsh tone.

"But it's going to take me a long time to be able to forgive you." He struck a noble, mournful pose, like a classical sculpture.

What an asshole.

"Don't strain yourself, Edward," I said brusquely. "I don't expect I'll be able to forgive you either. So I guess we break even."

"What happened to Alice—"

"Was _Hisashi's_ fault," I finished. "You seem to be forgetting that. He was an evil, evil man. You didn't even see it. You weren't there, you never met him. You never saw how vile he was." I spoke quietly and urgently, my voice trembling. "But now he's dead and the rest of his group are dead and that means less wrongful deaths in the world. Why can't you _see_ that? What's _wrong_with you?"

"Alice—"

"She helped kill him, Edward!" I said loudly. An owl took flight from a tree near us. "Do you honestly think she didn't consider the possibility that one of us could die? She obviously thought it was a risk worth taking! How can you lay this all on me? For god's sake, Edward, I'm your _daughter!_ My aunt died to help me and countless others live! And I would have done the same for her! _That's what families do, Dad!_"

Sweat stood out on my forehead and my whole body shook. I gritted my teeth together till they ached, curled my hands into fists and dug my fingernails into my palms until I felt the skin begin to give. For the first time in ages, Edward looked shaken instead of self-righteous.

Little by little, I forced myself to relax, loosening my muscles and unclenching my teeth. "Say something!" I demanded when the silence had stretched out too long. "Aren't you even a little sorry that you weren't there? You obviously knew it was dangerous or you would have come, you would have let Mom come—"

"Is that what you think of me?" he said, his voice smooth and cold. "That I didn't fight with you because I was _afraid?_ Do you think me merely a _coward?_"

"I don't know," I said. "Are you? I haven't seen any terribly compelling evidence to the contrary."

"You lied to us for decades," he said. "_Decades_, Renesmee."

"I didn't lie," I muttered. "I just didn't tell you every fucking detail of my life."

"What if you'd been killed on one of your many clandestine missions with the wolves? How do you think your mother would have felt, to hear second-hand that her daughter was suddenly no more? How do you think I would have felt?"

"How do you think _I_ would have felt?" I countered. "I don't exist solely for your benefit. I don't expect you to believe this, because you are a total fucking narcissist, but my life actually means more to _me_ than it does to _you_. I mean, I get that you were worried about me, but I'm not your pet, or your doll, or some extension of you. I don't owe you my life."

"Well, technically..." he said.

"Oh, really?" I cut in. "That's your argument? That because you contributed sperm to Mom's egg, you get to decide what I do with myself? That sounds like complete bullshit. In fact, that sounds like an insurmountable obstacle to us ever having a relationship again." I turned on my heel and strode away. Of course he was in front of me in a second.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"I'm going home," I said. "I'm going to Jake."

"Oh, don't even get me _started_ on _Jacob_," he began.

"Trust me, I'm not," I interrupted, but he went on anyway.

"He turned you against us," he said determinedly. "He pulled you into his world—"

"You know what?" I interrupted. "Just...you need to shut up for a minute. Let me lay it all out. I'll use small words so you'll be sure to understand." A low blow, given that my father was the king of using sixty syllables to say what could be said in two, but I was feeling poisonous.

"You made me leave Jacob behind when I hit puberty." Edward looked like he wanted to say something, but I moved on before he could open his mouth. "That sucked, but I can't blame you for it. You were just doing what you thought was right. He never made a move on me, not ever, not in all those years. And Dad, I wouldn't have minded if he'd tried, I really wouldn't. He treats me as an equal. He confides in me, he tells me when I'm being a little shit and I need a wake-up call. He gives me space when I need it. He accepts that sometimes he's a fuck-up too, that we're both works-in-progress. We've fought side by side for almost thirty years. He _understands_ me. He understands that sometimes I need to freak out, sometimes I need a punching-bag, sometimes I need to just fly to pieces. He understands that we'll never be truly better than the things we hunt unless we commit. _All the way_. And he understands that some day, we'll commit to a fight we can't win. But that doesn't change the fact that we have to fight it anyway."

"Don't, Nessie," my father pleaded. "Please, don't talk like this, not after everything with Alice and Jasper—"

"Am I hurting you?" I said. "Good. You _should_ hurt. I'm not trying to be vindictive, but this is _life_, Dad. Pick a side or get off the ride." Even though my father looked young to my eyes, I wasn't blind to the ridiculousness of a thirty-seven-year-old lecturing her hundred-and-forty-year-old father about the meaning of life. But then, I had been _technically _alive twenty years longer than he had, and it showed.

"Are you going to keep on living your stupid cushy life, with all the money you make from your power, and the mansions and the endless rounds of high school and college? Or are you gonna go make a fucking difference?"

"Renesmee, you've really misread the situation," he said, and that cold shutter began to fall once more over his eyes.

"No," I said sadly. "I really didn't." He was the one who always said _vampires don't change_, and he was right: it was far too late for him to grow up.

"I'm going to go and try to be happy, okay?" I said quite gently. "And you'll be happy here with Mom."

"How can you do this to us? Think of your mother—"

"Oh," I said, "Mom can come visit me any time she wants. I hope she will. But you and I...we don't work anymore, Dad. We'll never forgive each other. Isn't it better if we just accept it now, instead of dragging ourselves through the shit for another ten years?"

"Renesmee, I mean it when I say I'll always love you."

"I know, Dad. You too. But we should really just do that from afar, don't you think?"

"This isn't permanent," he said. "We just need to take some time to get a little perspective." I could tell he meant that _I_ needed perspective. But if our eleven years apart hadn't changed anything, it seemed unlikely that another eleven years _would_. It just wasn't worth arguing about

"Okay," I said. "I'm going now." I began to jog on ahead.

"Renesmee," he called after me. I turned and looked back at him. "Just tell me one thing. Are you and Jacob..._together_now?" I was surprised that he didn't know this; the only conclusion was that Rosalie and Emmett, my grandparents and my mother had all kept me firmly out of their thoughts when he was around.

I walked back and placed on fingertip against his wrist which gleamed coldly in the moonlight. I thought about the sweet kisses Jake had sprinkled over my nose and cheeks the morning I boarded my plane for Alaska, and relished the look on my father's face.

"I see," he said in a small voice.

"Bye, Dad," I said, turning to run off alone. "I love you, but it's time to go home."

* * *

**Almost done. One sexy outtake to post after this and then I say goodbye to TSB forever!**


	26. A Filthy Dirty Smutty Outtake

__**Ahoy! Thar be smut ahead! Slightly BDSM-y smut, in fact. This is an outtake from chapter 24; the relevant stuff is repeated here in italics.**

* * *

_When I woke up, I was nine parts horny and one part hungry, a much more manageable ratio. Jake was still out like a light. I poked him in the side a few times, to no effect. Then I started clearing my throat progressively louder. Then I feigned a coughing fit. Jake's eyes snapped open._

"_You okay?" he asked groggily. I nodded innocently. "Good," he said, and went straight back to sleep. I sighed and got out of bed, puttered around the kitchen making breakfast. Just as the bacon was starting to sizzle, Jake appeared in the doorway._

"_Do I smell bacon?" he asked excitedly._

"_Mm-hmm," I affirmed. "It'll be ready in twenty minutes."_

"_Since when does bacon take twenty minutes to cook?" he complained._

_I turned off the burner. "Since now," I said, opening my robe. Jake's mouth turned up._

"_I bow to your culinary genius, O Master Chef," he said, kneeling in front of me and nudging my legs apart._

"_Excellent," I said cheerfully._

* * *

"Why did all this take us so long?" Jacob asked my sternum an hour later. We were lying on a mound of couch-cushions that had fallen to the floor, sweaty and hungry and tangled up like twine.

"Because," I said, licking one finger and lazily inserting it into his ear, "You're a moron." Jacob cringed away from the wet willy and looked theatrically wounded. "Okay," I conceded, smoothing his hair, "Maybe not. I wanted you approximately six seconds after I hit puberty, but...I don't know if I was ready for you, then."

"I _know_ I wasn't ready for _you_," he said definitely. "I think about what I was like back then, and I was just...ugh. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I was just so fucking moody and angry, _all the time_, and I was a real asshole to basically everyone, I can't believe anyone stuck by me. _I_ wouldn't have. And I had no fucking idea...I hated being a wolf. Hated it. I wished it would just go away."

"Do you hate it now?"

He shrugged. "Yes and no. More no than yes. There are times when I'm really tired and crabby and it's a huge pain in the ass. And there are times when it legitimately sucks, because people get _hurt_, but mostly it's just...what I do now. If I stopped phasing, I would miss the shit out of it, I know I would. I would miss all the cool stuff like running down a leech, but I would also miss getting up at ass-thirty in the morning to go run pointless laps around the rez, and dealing with snotty young wolves."

"Yeah," I sighed. "I know what you mean." We were silent a few moments. "Jake?" I said. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Fire away," he said.

"When did you start wanting to, um...sex me? Because I know for most of my life you didn't. Don't try to deny it."

He laughed at my bluntness. "I don't deny it," he said. "I guess it changed about a year ago. When you moved back from Portland."

"A _year_ ago?" I shrieked. "_Seriously_?"

"Yeah," he said. "When you came back after you broke up with that teacher, and you completely lost your shit. Remember that?"

Did I ever. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I just assumed it was a one-way street, and it would be creepy and gross and wrong and sick for me to like, come on to you."

"Mmm," I said, nipping at the tender skin of his neck. "Well, at least you like coming onto me now."

He laughed. "I should admit that I've been jerking off approximately seventy times an hour since then. You know, to manage the...problem."

"The _problem_, huh_?_" I said, sliding my hand down his belly and over his dick. He shivered in response.

"Ngh," he said as I sat up and straddled him.

"Ahmm," he said as I began to rock back and forth, rubbing the length of his cock against my opening.

"Oh sweet Jesus," he said as I sank slickly onto him. His hands wrapped around behind me and he began to knead my asscheeks, gently but firmly spreading my legs wider than I knew they could go. This exposed whole new sensitive areas to the slippery friction between us.

"Oh god, Jake," I gasped, sliding my hands over my breasts, down my torso and my inner thighs. He took both my small wrists in one hand, and I started to pull away but he held me fast. My heart skipped several beats: we were rapidly approaching a line I'd wanted to cross for a long, long time, but never in my life had I been with a guy who was physically strong enough to participate. I extended one thumb to touch the back of Jake's hand and thought, _My safe word's "ermine,"_ then hazily imagined him doing all sorts of unsavory things to me_._

"You got it, Ness," he whispered, grinning. Then his fingers tightened sharply around my wrists and I felt my arms extend while with his other hand he kept my hips rocking against him.

I abandoned the control that I'd had to maintain for twenty years lest I hurt someone, gave in to the new and ferociously sexy way he began controlling my every movement. I felt helpless and exposed and unbelievably turned on. He angled his pelvis up and up until he was so deep inside me that I felt the pressure of his cock at my cervix. Without warning he flipped me over so I was pressed face-down on the floor. I felt the fibers of the carpet and the hard wood underneath digging into my hipbones and my ribs, and I felt him kneeling over me, pressing me down. He had to let go of my hands in order to accomplish this, and as soon as they were free I reached back and began to claw at him.

"I don't think so," he said gruffly, raking his coarse, bitten-off nails down my back. I arched my spine against the sharp pain of it, disarmed just long enough for him to grab my wrists again. He pulled my arms behind my back as far as they would go so that my spine made an acute arch, and I felt my shoulder sockets creak and groan under the pressure. Then I felt him enter me slowly from behind, still holding my arms in one hand and pressing my belly against the floor with the other. He thrust into me steadily and deeply. "I thought you'd be nice and..._tractable_," he said, flexing his fingers into my flesh with each word. "You just needed someone to teach you a little restraint."

"You son of a bitch," I panted. "Get the fuck off me or I'll tear your balls out with my teeth and shit them into a Port-A-Potty."

"I don't like that kind of talk, little girl," he admonished, pitching his voice lower and scarier than usual and yanking me up from the floor. I felt one shoulder dislocate and groaned in pain. Without pulling out of me he dragged me onto his lap, still facing away from him. He let go of the one arm that was now out of commission and trapped the other one against my hip with his hand. He lifted me easily, sliding me up to the very tip of his cock and then plunging me down onto it, again and again. I cried out, unable to mask the sound as anything other than enjoyment.

"I'd like to give you a little _present_," he whispered to me, punctuating his statement by tracing his tongue along the inner curves of my ear. "Something I've been saving up just for you." I struggled against him, my right arm flopping uselessly at my side. "But first you're going to give me one. How does that sound, little girl? You have anything for me?"

"I'll give you a present when penguins fly, you limp-dicked, shit-mouthed piss-drinker," I gasped. He chuckled darkly and reached around to shove three massive fingers in my mouth. I bit down on them, breaking the skin, but he snatched them away before I could get more than a taste. Then, his fingers wet with my saliva and his blood, he began to rub my clit, steadily increasing in speed until the pressure grew almost too much.

"If you fight me this'll just go badly for you," he said quietly. "Give me what I want. You know what it is." Gritting my teeth, I shook my head. "Tell me what I want, girl. I want to hear it from those pretty pink lips." I shook my head again. "_Say it!_" he commanded, his voice taking on that frightening quality it had when he issued a particularly strong order to a bratty wolf.

"Come, come!" I cried, giving in. "You want me to—"

And then I did.

As soon as he felt my muscles tensing around him, he let out a strangled yell and came too. Because of the angle, a good deal of semen squeezed out past his dick and dribbled onto my thighs. Completely spent, I hunched forward; I would have fallen if he hadn't caught me and lowered me carefully to the floor. He lay stretched out on top of me for a few moments, sweat pooling between our bodies.

Eventually, he pulled out and climbed off me. His palms rubbed warm circles on my back.

"Are you okay?" he asked me gently.

I turned over and let him see the grin that was plastered over my face. "That was _awesome!_" I blurted. "Oh my god, Jake, that was so fun!" He laughed happily at my ebullience and helped me to my feet. "Ooh," I said, looking down. "You're gonna have to pop my arm back in."

"Oh, right," he said. "Hold still." He grabbed my arm in one hand and my shoulder in the other and matter-of-factly snapped them back into alignment. I winced at the sensation, but it would fade soon enough. I'd had my shoulders dislocated so many times in my career of supernatural vigilante that it scarcely even bore mentioning.

"Have you done a lot of this before?" I asked him curiously as we headed toward the bathroom to sponge off.

"Not like this, no," he said. "I mean, to a way, way lesser degree, yes. But I couldn't really get into it before or I would hurt someone. Honestly, whenever I thought about it, I was always the one on the bottom. I order enough people around in real life." He laughed at the way my face lit up.

"That's a great idea!" I burst out. "Let's try it!" A thought occurred to me and I glanced at him out of the side of my eye. "Did you at least like it a little, doing it this way?"

"Hell yes!" he exclaimed. "It goes against the grain, hurting you. But these orders were a hell of a lot more fun to give. And I have to admit, you were pretty fucking hot." He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close, my back nestled against his front, and began kissing my neck. "I particularly liked when you called me a shit-mouthed piss-drinker," he added. "How did you know?"

* * *

**Welp, that's it! No more Slow Burn...like, ever. I'm glad I wrote it, because it taught me a lot of stuff about writing long-ish fiction, but it definitely kicked my ass sometimes. On the plus side, a lot of what I've learned from writing TSB (like character development, flow and overall tightness) has been channeled directly into another Nessie story which I will begin posting next Friday. I hope you'll check it out!**

**Thanks to everyone who read my story, and an extra big thanks to everyone who reviewed me. I really appreciated the constructive criticism and the encouragement. You're basically the reason I post this stuff online instead of just writing it and then letting it languish in a folder forever. Give yourselves a nice wet kiss from me.**


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